


Trauma Spy Book Three

by chezchuckles



Series: Trauma Spy [3]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:27:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 83,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25373131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles
Summary: Continuation of Trauma Spy Book One and Two
Relationships: Kate Beckett & Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: Trauma Spy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821298
Comments: 23
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

Alex and Ben arrived only a minute later, entering the small ante-chamber where their group had huddled, Kate leaning against the wall with James half-asleep in her arms. Wyatt was crawling on the floor under the console that housed the controls, the MRI machine in her periphery next door. 

Ben was the one who sat down at the console and started turning things on, and Wyatt squawked and scooted out from under it, crawling with one knee pulled up - basically scooting on his hands. Castle bent down and picked him up, checked him out, but it looked like he had only been surprised, not hurt.

"Who's going first?" Alex said, all business. He was opening a storage locker where earlier they had discovered hospital gowns.

"I'm not wearing that," Castle muttered, shifting Wyatt higher on his chest. "Air on my ass."

"Have to," Alex said shortly. "Procedure."

"Fuck procedure." Castle shot her a look, and she realized he was protesting for her benefit.

She didn't want to wear a hospital gown either. She didn't want to get undressed.

"Richard," Alex clipped. His voice made goose bumps break out across her skin and James went rigid in her arms. So did Wyatt, clinging to his father and burying his face in Castle's neck.

Well, damn, it wasn't all in her head. 

Alex did sometimes sound exactly like Black.

"Don't Richard me," Castle growled. "I don't want to fucking wear it."

"It's procedure for a reason. You know what happens inside that tube? First of all, the walls heat up to a degree which could melt your skin to the fucking tube. Second, it's a powerful magnetic field. So anything at all that happens to be inside that room gets sucked inside that tube. I've seen a man be crushed when negligence allowed a chair to prop open the connecting door."

"So don't fucking prop open the door. And I won't touch the damn sides."

"Anything metal that you're wearing, anything at all with a synthetic fiber can become a conductor. The RF waves can be channeled directly into your skin so that-"

"Fine," Castle spat. But his eyes shot to hers, an apology and plea in them. "Fucking hell. I'll wear the damn gown. Give it."

But she wasn't worried about that right now. Something else had just occurred to her. "The boys," she said, cupping the back of James's head. "They'll - how do we keep them from touching the sides? I think I can get them to lie flat and still, but I can't be sure they won't-"

"They'll have to be sedated."

"No," Castle said. "You don't know how much sedation."

"I'll do my best-"

"What do you mean, you don't know how much?" Carrie jumped in. She had been circling the edges, watching Castle argue but not offering support. She had known, then, that he'd have to wear the gown, but this must have meant more. "Look it up on the conversion table. There's a website for it too, if you don't have the book here."

"It's not that," Castle answered. Castle. What did Castle know about this? "Our bodies don't metabolize the same. Sedation often doesn't work. I've never even been intoxicated before - I just don't get drunk. My body handles it too quickly for drinking to effect me. Same with sedatives. I can be tranquilized, but it requires a massive dose all in one shot, and I amnot doing that to the boys. Not just guessing."

Kate's heart flipped. "A massive dose. No." She held James tighter. "We're not doing it."

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sure our father sedated them for-"

"He gave them MRIs," Carrie spoke up. "It was in the master file. But he didn't say he sedated them."

Everyone looked at Carrie.

"I've read the whole thing. Took notes." She leaned in and took Wyatt from Castle, leaving his hands free for the hospital gown. "He was meticulous about this. Kate's medical history - the boys. It's very clear that if he had sedated them, there would have been data tables on dosage and results. There wasn't. There isn't. They weren't drugged, but they were scanned."

She walked to the door of the ante-chamber and opened it, Wyatt with his arm around her neck and riding high on her hip. Kate jerked forward to follow, but she couldn't - she found she couldn't actually step over the threshold after the woman.

Carrie moved to the MRI machine and put Wyatt on his feet on the sliding tray. The boy gave a whimper and glanced at her, and Kate came forward, rushing inside with James in her arms. But Wyatt didn't reach for her, he just squatted down, got on his hands and knees, and then laid his cheek to the plastic surface.

His body flattened, his arms curled up into his sides. He sighed.

He knew exactly what to do.

Her stomach rose and she staggered back, but Castle was right there, catching her, shielding her from the rest of them. "It's okay, it's okay. It's good, honey. It's a good thing."

"Can - can you go in with him?" she croaked, her whole body shaking. She turned blindly into him. "Can you go in with me?" 

"I'll ask, I'll ask," he whispered, a hand at the side of her face, pressing her head into his neck. "I can ask. I - think it makes the image fuzzy with two, I don't know, baby."

She nodded, hating herself for that moment of weakness. "I'm okay, it's more for the boys. So they don't touch the sides and get burned."

"Of course." 

He knew she was lying, but he didn't say it. She lifted her head and shuffled away from him, and he went back into the antechamber to ask Alex. She glanced to Carrie, and then to little rambunctious, eager Wyatt who was lying so still and so good on the tray. She shifted James in her arms, his body warm and heavy, and she came to kneel before Wyatt, lying a hand on his back to stroke his hair.

Wyatt watched her, wriggling very narrowly, small, into her touch. 

She leaned in and kissed his forehead. "What a good boy you are. My very good boy." She kissed him again, hovering close, unable to move away. "So proud of you, how smart you are. Just this once, baby. Just so we know you're okay."

He didn't move, he didn't reach for her. He only closed his eyes with every stroke of her hand down his back, unable to keep them open for long.

"I can go in with the boys," Castle said as he came in. He touched her shoulder and squatted down next to her. "But not you, sweetheart. The brain image is too fuzzy. It would be clouded and we wouldn't be able to tell. But the boys are so different, size and activity, that it would be acceptable, he said."

"I'm okay," she said. "I'm fine." She ignored the look he leveled on her and turned back to Wyatt, kissing his nose so his eyelashes fluttered. "Hey, baby, Daddy is going in with you. But hospital gowns first, sweetheart. Okay?"

"Daddy?" Wyatt whispered.

Oh, God. Breaking her heart. How many times? How had he treated them, to make even Wyatt so still and scared to move?

"Yeah," Castle whispered back, leaning in over her to pick Wyatt up. "You and me together. Not alone in there. So let's strip naked, kiddo, and go commando inside the tube."

He made his eyebrows wriggle and now that Wyatt was away from the tray, he giggled, leaning into Castle and squeezing his neck.

Kate stood up and followed him out to the antechamber where another door led to the changing room. When Castle disappeared inside with Wyatt, she forced her heart to still and her body to relax, leaning against the wall once more.

But Carrie stood at her side, shoulder to shoulder, and that helped a little.

\-----

When Castle carried Wyatt out of the changing room, he saw the look of disbelief cross everyone's faces. But Kate was smiling.

He raised an eyebrow and shifted Wyatt in his arms. "What? I'm not going in there without this kid in some kind of diaper."

He had wrapped the hospital gown around the boy's bottom, tied the sleeves off around his waist. The diaper itself he had tossed into a trash bin, already wet since breakfast. It was what had given him the idea, actually, because a naked boy didn't seem appealing in such tight confines.

Alex handed him two sets of bright pink ear plugs, and he squeezed their rubbery foam between his fingers, inserted them first into Wyatt's ears. The boy swung his head back and forth, clearly enjoying the slight sensation of dizziness and the muffled noises around him. Castle put in his own, grinned at Kate as if in thumbs up.

They were father and son guinea pigs, geared up and outfitted for the test flight. It wasn't a two-coil operation, this MRI machine, though Castle had heard the DoD was working on one secretly. Probably at his father's behest, since the man had been obsessed with unit cohesion and group think. The images were going to be a little indistinct. But.

"If you're ready," Alex said tightly.

"We're ready. Right, little cub?" He gave Kate another fast look but she was feigning nonchalance, leaning back against the wall with James in her arms. He hoped some of that calm was real, and helped along by the little leech at her chest, but he didn't want to point her out in the middle of everyone.

He really wished he could've gone in with her too.

They would scan both him and Wyatt, though Alex had told him quietly that the images would be less than perfect, and not up to his standards. Castle figured it was better to have an adult in the tube with the boys and get a hazier picture of their brains than to put them inside that machine alone after everything. Maybe Black had before, but it didn't make it okay.

And sedation was out of the question.

Castle hopped up onto the sliding tray, pulled his feet up so his heels rested on the end. He was surprised when Kate came inside with James, walking over to them even as he laid down on the tray. He glanced up to make sure his head was slotted correctly, and he pushed Wyatt down to the blank space at his waist. It was a wider tube than he had normally been in, and it could be that his father had done that on purpose. 

Kate touched the inside of his elbow where his arm laid across Wyatt's back. He felt his skin prickle at her caress.

"You'll be okay," he told her.

"So will you," she smiled half-heartedly.

"James will keep you steady," he said gravely, hoping his voice wasn't carrying to those beyond the door. He didn't know that James would do anything mentally, but he knew she'd fight with everything in her to keep herself together for the boys, and maybe only that was how James would help. But he would be helping. "And Wyatt won't touch the walls."

"No," Wyatt mumbled. "No, no."

"See?" he offered her, his throat closing up a little at the heartbreak on her face. "We've got this. Wyatt's smarter than he looks."

She huffed and leaned in over the boy, kissed his temple and cheek. "You look plenty smart to me. Don't listen to your daddy. He's playing."

"Pay?"

"Play later," he told Wyatt. "Rest now. Nap. Can you take a nap, kid?"

Wyatt didn't move, his face towards Castle, eyes blinking slowly. Somehow he could tell the kid wanted Kate, was thinking of Kate, of his mother.

"Kiss him again, sweetheart. I think he already misses you."

Kate squeezed his elbow, retaliation or indulgence he didn't know, and he leaned over and kissed him first, her lips light and soft against his own. And then she pressed her cheek into Wyatt's and murmured love in his ear, all while James clung to her shirt and tried to stay in her arms.

And then she straightened up and left them in the room. The door clanged shut and he heard the lock turn - fuck, he'd forgotten there would be a lock, damn procedure - and then the tray started to slide into the tube.

"Oooh," Wyatt murmured, giggling a little. Very softly, barely audible. He splayed his fingers out, his arm tucked up into him like before, but those little fingers touching Castle's side. 

"You and James got away with that, huh?" Castle whispered. His hand was curved over Wyatt's bottom, and his arm pressed a little harder into the boy's back. "You did what you could, I know. Good boy. Now stay still, here we go."

The tray locked into place. They were inside the tube. A light flickered on and then shut off and Wyatt hummed, vibrating a little.

And then the tube itself hummed, in the exact same pitch and tone that Wyatt had predicted, and the hairs stood up on Castle's arms.

Not just because he was inside a magnetic imaging machine as it was starting up, but just the way the boy knew this experience. Was settled and used to it.

He hated his father. 

The tube knocked loudly, startling him, but Wyatt lay undisturbed under his arm.

And then the truly raucous noise began, clanking and thumping and pounding, even through the ear plugs.

He really fucking hated his father.

\-----

When the tray slid back and the door lock released, Kate was first over the threshold and inside. She could hear Wyatt talking animatedly to Castle, as if all that time quiet and still had built up excess energy in him. When she got closer and the tub itself didn't make their voices echo quite so badly, she could finally make out what Wyatt was saying.

"Mommy? Now. Mommy."

"That's right, buddy. Now you go to Mommy."

"Mommy."

"You got it. See? Here she is. We'll switch." Castle stayed on the tray in his skimpy hospital gown, Wyatt up on his feet on the plastic, hunched over and talking earnestly. 

He turned his head at her approach and beamed, throwing up both his arms to her. "Hi, Mommy."

"Hey, baby, you were so good." She lowered James to the tray and into Castle's care, and she picked up Wyatt who snuggled up to her chest, arms around her neck. "You were so still and quiet. Let's tell James good luck, okay?"

"Uck!" Wyatt shouted, and his voice echoed in the little room. Castle gave her an amused look, settling James into the vee of his legs.

"You went with the gown as diaper, huh?"

"I figured why buck tradition?" she smiled back. Something of her anxiety had fizzled out when Wyatt's test had been over, but now that her own was looming, it was a lot harder to keep her shit together. 

"Gonna be okay, Kate. I'll get on the mic like you did with Wyatt."

"I know." She nodded briskly, shifting Wyatt in her arms as he wriggled. His fingers twirled in her hair, his happiness radiating. "I'm okay. James, hey, baby, your turn, huh?"

"Mommy, you," James said knowingly, little skinny Buddha baby, at such repose. "You, Mommy."

"Mommy's turn next, that's right. But right now, it's you." Castle ruffled James's hair. "Can you say, it's my turn."

"My." Solemn, knowing, those wise eyes in that innocent face. 

"Good job."

She leaned in and kissed him, and then Castle because he was there, he was close, she missed his smell in her breathing space.

"Kate, baby, when your turn is over, I'm gonna take you someplace quiet and private and reward you. You get me? Nice big fucking reward."

She shivered and lifted her eyes to him. "Yeah." She shivered again and then laughed a little. "Hope you didn't promise the boys a reward."

"Their reward is you," he chuckled back. "Alright, fire in the hole. Torpedo us, baby."

She left him there, carrying Wyatt out, snuggly bug Wyatt, and the door locked behind her.

\-----

“Mama, mama, mama-”

“Yeah, buddy, I know, I know,” Castle hushed. “I get you’re excited, but come on. Your old dad ain’t so bad, is he?”

“My mommy.”

Castle grunted, not sure babies only fourteen - no, wait, now fifteen months old, as of a few days ago - fifteen month olds should be able to put words together like James had just done.

Should they?

Since their turn was over, Castle lifted James from the sliding tray and swung his own feet over the side. But James twisted in his arms, looking for Kate, head swiveling, his face clearly in raptures knowing she would be showing up soon.

“Door hasn’t even opened yet, kiddo. Hold your hors-”

And then it did, and Kate was darting inside. Wyatt was nowhere in sight, so she must have given the kid over-

“Whoa, fuck, Kate, what-”

“Nothing,” she gritted out, her lips bloodless. “Just - James. Give me-”

“Okay, okay, here-” He hastily handed the boy over to her and she clutched him, too tightly because her knuckles blanched. She pressed her cheek to James’s head, her eyes squeezed shut. Castle jumped to his feet and wrapped his arms around them both even as James curled into her chest. “Hey, what happened. Kate. What’s going on?”

“I’m fine.”

“No, baby, you’re not.”

She mewled and then shoved James at him, trying to untangle herself, but he wouldn’t let her go, he held her more tightly, refusing to take the boy back. 

“Stop,” he said harshly. “Stop, Kate. First of all, you’re trying to punish yourself, and we are done with that. And secondly, you’re actually just punishing James. He’s been looking forward to seeing you, having you, since he went in that damn tube. So don’t.”

She froze, and he rubbed her back, lifting his head when he saw the shadow in the doorway. Colin appeared, gave him a slow shake of his head. Behind him, still in the antechamber, was Eastman, and the man looked grave.

Fuck. Had she lost it?

“Did they take Wyatt from you?” he said roughly, narrowing his eyes at the two men over her shoulder.

She hunched in, cuddling into James. “Y-yes.”

“Fucking hell, I told Mark - and Carrie both - that was a fucking bad idea-”

“They had to, I had to - they had to take him.”

“What the fuck happened, Kate?”

“I don’t know,” she cried.

“Okay, okay, no, honey, wait. Hush, sweetheart. It’s okay. You know, you do know. Because you’re still here, you’re not rocking in a corner somewhere, right?”

She grunted, apparently not amused, and James murmured her name from the cove of her body. “I just - panicked. I panicked and I think I was holding him too tightly and Carrie said, sweetie let me take him, and she did and I los-lost it.”

“I told her not to fucking take those boys from you. Talk about a damn trigger.”

“I’m not - triggered. I just - couldn’t keep it together. My own kids can lie down in a stupid metal tube, but I’m falling a-”

“No, we’re not comparing. No comparisons. The babies were no doubt treated far better than you were by that bastard.”

“Yeah, but if I had an MRI, I didn’t know it. I was sedated for everything. So-”

“No.” He gripped the back of her neck and pulled her away from his chest so he could see her eyes. “No, Kate. Stop. There are no judgments about this. Three years of fucking terrible shit done to you. You get to be however and whatever you are.”

Her shoulders drew up, her eyes sliding away from his. “But I don’t want to be this,” she whispered.

Castle gentled, cupping her face. She still held James, and the boy’s magic had already begun to work. The wildness had left her eyes, that feral desperation had submerged again. “Hey, sweetheart. I know. We’ll work on it. First step is to get a picture of what’s going on in your head, eliminate some scary shit. Okay? Can you please do that for me?”

Her nod was automatic and immediate, but her chin jerked up when she realized she was agreeing. 

“We need this cleared up,” he told her softly. “And James and Wyatt - they want to spend the rest of the day snuggling up with you. So do I, for that matter. You are our reward, honey. You should’ve heard him in there, the second the machine stopped, he was calling your name.”

Kate cupped the back of James’s head and let out a long breath, and he could practically see her hackles dropping, her wariness undiminished but the fear receding at least. “Carrie said he - there was a note in their file when - with the MRI.”

“What?” he said, startled.

Kate let out a juddering sigh, like she’d been crying - but she hadn’t. Just worked up. “After the MRI they had a pass-through. She didn’t know what it meant. But she described how he took them - aides took them - at the same time to what he called the pass-through. At the pass-through, they were allowed ten minutes with audio. There was a note that said do not allow them to bang on the glass.”

“Yeah?” he said, a little bewildered. He didn’t know what a pass-through was. With audio and a glass window or like-

“I - remember once. I didn’t say - didn’t tell Carrie this but I remember once being in my room and - you know how there were those observation windows up high? I used to be paranoid about-”

She shook her head and looked away, looked down at James.

“Kate?”

“I think that was the pass-through,” she whispered.

“What was?”

Her head came up, lips pinched, cheeks white. She frowned fiercely as if second-guessing.

“Kate, what was the pass-through? What’s a pass-”

“The windows. Ob-observation windows. I think after the boys got tests done, he had aides bring them to s-see me. Only I - it was just one-way glass.”

His heart dropped.

She shuddered and hugged James against her. “I just - one time the window vibrated like someone was pounding on it.”

“Oh, God.”

\-----

"You're freezing," he murmured, arms wrapping around her.

He had pulled her into the changing room with him. She knew she was shivering so hard her teeth were chattering but she couldn't stop it. 

He squeezed her tightly, her breath leaving her lungs in a rush, and she hated it. She hated needing so damn much. Hated that she couldn't stand in the room and keep her shit together, hated that she had to use James like a suppression blanket just to stay on her feet. Hated everything that had been done to her to make her this way, and the bastard who had toyed with her from day one.

Playing. Like a cat with a baby bunny. At least if she'd been a mouse, he would've eventually killed her. Now her rabbit heart was barely able to survive the idea of him and the things he'd done.

Castle didn't speak. Just rubbed his hands up and down her back, her shoulders, bringing some warmth to her limbs, heating her blood.

"Can I have my reward now?" she croaked.

He huffed, his laughter a puff of air against her ear. "Much as I'd like to."

"Why not?" she whined, growled at herself for how she sounded, how desperate she was to put this off. "No, no, never mind. Stupid. God. I just need to get it over with. I'm dreading it more than anything, and why? I was never awake for this. It's just a tube. Lying down in a tube."

He didn't answer that either and she jerked out of his arms, put her hands to the bottom of her shirt and ripped it off over her head. Before she knew it, his fingers were at the button of her jeans and dragging the zipper down, and now her goose bumps were wicked, and for the heat of him and not the chill of her.

When he went to his knees and dragged her jeans down with him, she sucked in an unsteady breath and gripped his shoulders, her stomach fluttering. 

"I think I'm gonna be sick," she groaned.

His head jerked up. "If you're gonna be sick, please aim away from my face."

She laughed, choking on it, lifted a hand to her eyes to cover them. She felt like she was breaking up. Cracking up. "Oh, God. I'm already crazy. It's too late for me, save yourself."

He laughed back, hands skimming up the backs of her legs, just enough warning so that she didn't actually vomit from nerves when his mouth touched the top of her panties.

She gripped his head against her and stared down at him, her arousal something very close to panic that she couldn't bother to decipher right now. Castle kissed her navel, dipping his tongue inside, and her back arched.

"Mm, your skin is like ice," he murmured. "Let me warm you up a little, sweetheart."

She couldn't comprehend what he was doing to her. His mouth against her skin, his hands against her, dragging off her panties and shifting her thighs. Her legs were jelly; she clutched at his ears and endured the onslaught, feeling heavy, feeling drugged. His tongue, the little swipes, playing. His thumbs holding her open. The burn.

She breathed when she could, gasps that gave her nothing but the eternal surprise of sensation tightening, the narrowing tunnel of need. Sharp. Difficult. Painful. 

She was burning.

She was burning when he pressed up inside her, and then she went off like a nova, starbursts and solar flares, her head thrown back and her body collapsing.

Castle dragged her down against him and into his lap, petting and stroking, kisses that tasted like bitter cocoa and silk. She felt his palms at her breasts, the way he untangled her bra, the shiver of sensation down her spine as he held her against him, and then the hospital gown dragged on over her shoulders, keeping in the heat.

She was witless and dumb for a heartbeat, her cheek against the top of his shoulder, her breasts heavy. And then she roused, arms drawing in to find the sleeves, aftershocks twitching inside and out, wetness at her inside thighs. She sat up straight and he nudged her hands away with his own, ripped a hole in the side seam with this thumb.

"What-"

"Fixing it," he murmured, a kiss skimming her jaw as he bent over the work. He drew one of the strings through the hole and wrapped it tightly around her waist, and then tied it to the other string, closing the gown like a wrap dress.

"Oh," she breathed.

"Better," he whispered, another kiss down her jaw that made her nipples pucker. His hands smoothed the gown at her thighs. "Better now."

"Better now," she echoed, feeling it sink into her.

"Not perfect, but - it will work."

It would. It would work.

"You'll talk to me on the mic," she whispered, turning her face into his so that their cheeks pressed together. "You'll be there."

"I'm already here."

She nodded and pushed off his chest, got to her feet. Shaky but it might be from the orgasm that she'd fallen into.

"I'm ready," she said.

\-----


	2. Chapter 2

He shifted on his feet and leaned over the console, planting his hands on the rubber edge - watching the window.

The tray squeaked as it rolled back, and the mic inside the room picked up the sound so that it came through the speaker set into the console. Alex gave him a not subtle look for hogging the board, and he flipped a switch to start the machine.

His finger was cramping on the button that opened the mic on his end; he had left it open so she could hear him breathing. "Machine should be starting now," he told her quietly. He didn't like that everyone on this end could hear every word he said, but at least the room had cleared out so that it was only himself, Ben, and Alex. Colin and the Eastmans had very grudgingly left with the boys at Castle's request.

"Alright, baby, it makes this humming sound as the electromagnets get warmed up-"

"Warmed up," Alex snorted, apparently objecting to his terminology.

"-and you know what happened? Wyatt hummed just like that before it started. It was cute. He knew exactly what to expect. So when I had James with me, I paid attention to how it went. I can walk you through it."

Of course there was nothing from her side. The camera on her face inside the tube showed her eyes closed, her breath a little fast, heart rate rapid. Those were the only things he had at his disposal.

There was, of course, the little click button in her hand. If she pressed it, they would get her out of there immediately. But he knew Kate Beckett, and he knew no matter what happened, she wouldn't press the panic button.

So he talked.

"Now it should be the knocking sound. It's loud. I could hear your voice talking to Wyatt over the noise, but sometimes you really have to strain. The knocking goes on through the whole process, baby, so it'll start to get really annoying."

Her eyes opened, blinked slowly. That was the only movement allowed. Minimal. She could move her fingers slowly, and her eyelids, her chest could expand with her breaths, but that was it.

Now that it was really going, and Alex was only monitoring the outputs, Castle pushed him to one side and grabbed the other chair, sank down to curl in around the microphone. 

"Hey, sweetheart, you and me now. I kicked my brother to the other side of the room. Just you and me and this big fucking machine. I take you to the best places, don't I?"

Her lashes fluttered, lips pressed together.

"Don't make her laugh, you ass."

He gave his brother a lazy glare. "Shut the fuck up. I'll make her laugh if I want to."

She snorted, eyes open, narrowing, and he got that message loud and clear.

"Fine, fine, no laughing. Want to get this over with, I know. Let's see if I can be utterly boring. Huh." He let the mic stay up, let her heart the static of him on the other end and then he shook his head. "Nope. Not possible. I'm too damn sexy to be boring."

He could see the growl in her chest. Well. He imagined it, especially as her eyes narrowed to slits in the video monitor.

"That's it, baby. You know it's true." 

He elbowed Alex aside, hard, keeping the bastard from the main board. He knew how this went, he had asked Colin to pay strict attention - how much did Alex do, what did he do, which buttons and all that - and he knew Alex had no fucking reason to eavesdrop this closely.

"Hey, I have an idea. Since I can't touch you, and I wish I could be right there, keeping you warm, sweetheart. But since I'm stuck here, I want you to do something for me."

Her lashes fluttered, eyes seemed to caress the video feed. Made his stomach clench.

"You're allowed to move your fingers, love. I want you to unclench one of your fists, slowly-" He took a breath when she did, let it out over the microphone so she could hear him and echo his own pattern. "Slowly, Kate. Uncurl your fist and let your fingers rest against the outside of your thigh."

Alex snarled at him under his breath. "If you get 1-900 number in here, I will cut that mic off."

He punched his brother hard in the shoulder, ignored the asshole's threat. "Are your fingers against your skin? Oh, wait, the hospital gown. That's fine. Your fingers against the material. And stroke. Lightly up and down your leg. Little light touches, like I'm petting you." 

Her eyelids drooped slowly, and he thought there was a little more ease in them, even if her other hand was still digging her nails into her palm. The electromagnetic field or perhaps the RF itself was creative havoc on their connection. He'd noticed it inside the tube, how silent and quiet it was suddenly, like still waters in his soul. His sensation of Wyatt had been like nothing at all, with James like dead air filled with snow - when they had been in the tube with him.

But behind the glass, he'd gotten nothing from them. And scarily nothing from Kate either. He knew the feeling was mutual, that it had been part of why she'd struggled with both him and James cut off from her, and now she was truly alone in that tube.

"Can you feel it? Real small, light. When you sleep, honey, when you're finally asleep, that's what I do. I just - want to keep you calm so you won't dream, so nothing ever disturbs you."

Her eyes came open slowly, blinked. Her heart rate was erratic on the feed, but her breathing had slowed. It seemed to be working. It was working. She was hanging on.

"We can do this. You know we can. Soft strokes, baby. Lightly up and down your thigh where you can reach, where I'd touch you if I was lying there beside you, just to let you know I was there, even if you're not awake."

\-----

The moment the machine stopped, she was crawling out of the tube before the tray could slide out. She didn’t bother waiting, just clambered out, knocking her knee into the side of the housing unit, gasping when it burned.

She clutched the tray, almost falling as the pain made her lose her balance, but in the next moment, Castle had caught her, drawing her into his chest. She grunted and gripped the back of his shirt, her hand in a fist as she finally got her feet to the ground.

“Let me go,” she husked.

“You - sure?”

“Let me go,” she cried, squirming hard to get free of the crush of his arms.

He released her and she stumbled back, smacking into the tray. But she dodged his instinctive reach, skirted around him to head for open door. 

Alex loomed just over the threshold and she jerked to a halt, felt Castle collide with her back. He gripped her hips to keep them both upright, and she stiffened, unable to move forward, unable to move at all.

Castle let her go and pushed ahead, knocking his brother backwards as he did and clearing the doorway. She followed quickly, slipping inside the antechamber and scanning the room.

“Where are the boys?” she choked out.

“With the Eastmans and my brother,” Castle answered, reaching back for her but not touching. His hand hovered there a moment, and then dropped, and she shifted on her feet.

“With them where?”

“Back towards the lobby. They were supposed to be searching for a place to deliver lunch.”

She let out a breath, her stomach still flipping, couldn’t fathom lunch. Alex was watching her - studying her - and she was so jittery she thought she’d do something rash. “I’ll just go - um - over there.” 

“I need to stay here and - oversee.” He frowned and rubbed his jaw, clearly thinking she needed to be baby-sat.

Well, and maybe she did, but a walk down the hallway was hardly- 

“Wait a minute and I can go-”

“No.” She swallowed and kept her lips pressed together, couldn’t even start a conversation like that, a back and forth where he tried to protect her, oversee her. She just needed to get out of here. The sky. She would take the boys outside.

Kate moved, but Castle cleared his throat, his head inclining towards her. For a moment, she had no idea what was wrong, why he was looking at her like that, and then she glanced down at her feet and her heart tremored.

Damn.

Hospital gown.

She hadn’t even noticed. 

Kate hustled past him and into the changing room, her hands shaking as she shut the door behind her. 

She was okay. She was fine. She could do this.

Change clothes. Panties first. Up over her knees, remembering his mouth and his hands on her-

She was going to be fine.

Whatever happened. She could do this.

\-----

When Colin opened the hallway door and came through, Castle realized it had been eight minutes since Kate had gone into that changing room alone.

"Col," he called, and pointed to the spot he'd taken up behind Alex. 

His brother gave a short nod and came forward, gave him a look. "The boys are asking for Kate."

Of course they were. She was their reward. Damn. "Right, yes." He rubbed his jaw and glanced to the door of the changing room. "I'm just gonna see what the hold up is. Stay here and-"

"Keep an eye," Colin finished. "Definitely. How far are we into the job?"

"He's just finished clearing up Wyatt's scan. It's messy though."

Colin nodded and Castle left his brother - his true brother - to the task. When he tapped lightly on the door, there was a moment of strange - he didn't know. A wave of something that made him think that suddenly she was there again. A force.

He scratched at the door again. "Kate?"

A tight noise from within made him twist the knob and go on inside, closing the door behind him. Kate was pacing the narrow confines of the changing room, her hands knotted together and pressed up under her sternum, her back to him. Her hair was wild, most of it undone from the knot, but he could see the pale strip of skin at her neck.

"Kate," he said quietly. "Is-"

"I need my knife," she hissed. 

His heart tripped. Her shoulders were hunched inward when she turned to him.

She was working at the strings of the hospital gown. The strings he had tied. Apparently, too tight.

A breath left him and he came forward, easing her hands away.

"Don't laugh at me," she growled.

"No, honey," he murmured.

"You are," she muttered. She slapped at his shoulder but her hands came to rest on his biceps, his forearms under hers as he worked at the knot in the strings. 

"Only a little," he hummed, nudging her head aside with his chin when she got in his way watching him. "Why didn't you come ask-"

"Shut up," she groaned.

Because she didn't think to ask. Damn. He picked at the knot with his thumbnail but it was mostly hopeless. "You're right. Need the knife. Why didn't you wear it this morning?"

"Are you kidding me?" she growled, eyes flashing as she looked up at him. "I'm not stupid. Just - clearly - incompetent."

"You're not incompetent," he muttered back, nudging his knuckles a little hard into her abs. "I tied the damn things too tight."

"No," she gritted out. "You didn't. I was - pacing. Trying. Not to panic."

And knotting it up. Her own fingers then, twisting and pulling just for the resistance of it. "Well, but here you are, not panicking. So let's call it a win and I'll rip these clothes off you." He wriggled his eyebrows and she actually laughed, a startled noise, like a wolf barking in surprise.

His wild wolf. 

He kissed her hard, shoving his tongue into her mouth without her granting it, but she clung to his arms and surged up onto her toes into him. The crave of the thing. Craven, desperate, dark. It bounced and echoed between them, smashing things as it went, wreaking havoc, destruction in the best, most delicious way.

He gripped both sides of the damn gown and ripped, tearing the hole he'd made even wider, shredding it at its poorly constructed seams. She moaned into his mouth and dragged her mouth away from his, breathing hard and clutching him, her cheek and nose clashing against his.

She was in the way, their bodies were awkward and colliding. It was the most wonderful feeling, having her messy and uncoordinated, their fumbling and bones at odds.

He finally got the gown in pieces hanging from those stubborn strings, and she wriggled out of it as he tugged it up and over her body. She shivered violently and pressed herself against him, pushing his shirt up before he knew what she was doing, so that their bare skins struck.

She hissed and dropped her face into his neck, pushing against him with her toes, arms sliding around his waist. "You're always so warm," she muttered, her goose bumps in patches at the back of her arm, at the flare of her hip, the side of her ribs.

"Clothes will help," he said, smiling against the top of her head.

"Shut up."

"Just saying."

"Don't be a punk. Not attractive."

"I think your body says otherwise," he murmured, skimming his fingers down her bare back and teasing at her ass. She grunted and rocked hard into him, proving his point.

"Shut up. Such smug arrogance, all the time."

"Good reason, baby. As you've come to discover."

And then she did laugh, and draw a little aways from him to give him a narrowing of her eyes, just like she had in the tube. "Let me get dressed. I'll be out in a minute."

"I can't help you?"

She shoved on his chest. "You're not really a help, are you? Not with getting me into my clothes. Mostly just out."

"I do love you out of your clothes," he murmured, reaching out to caress the line of her hip. "You have a gorgeous body. Great curves."

She wriggled away from him, shooting him threatening looks with a damn lot of heat in her eyes. She wanted him too.

"Later, Castle. Later."

"I'm holding you to that. Later. There will be a later."

She wasn't allowed to leave.

\-----

When Kate exited the narrow hallway and came out into the lobby, both boys were already running. 

"Mommy!" Wyatt flung himself at her knees and beamed up at her, hugging her so that she nearly stumbled over him, and James came up at her side and reached up, arms lifted for her, wordless but pleading.

He was doing his trick. She could feel it, the urge, how it rose up in her throat so that she was bending her knees and taking him before she quite knew what she was doing. No wonder she'd been so helpless to loving him, loving them both. She hadn't been able to stop it.

She kissed his cheek and cuddled him, still half bent-kneed to keep a hand on Wyatt. "Hey, guys. Did you figure out lunch?"

Carrie stood from the waiting room chair and came to greet her, or maybe just hover, seeing if she needed help. "We thought sandwiches. Something easy. Mark said there's a good deli down the street. He's going to call-in an order for us, so think about what you want."

What she wanted.

"Yeah, I'll write something down for you." Kate hugged James to her chest, her arm braced at his shoulders, and he squirmed with pleasure, his fingers twirling her hair. They both did it now, both boys, though it had been James in the beginning. James alone.

She crouched to the floor and supported James with a thigh, opened her free arm to Wyatt. The boy wriggled into her beside his brother, humming noises against her neck and chattering in a language he'd made up. 

"So chatty," she murmured, pressing her cheek to his. He went quiet at that, and still, and she realized it had become a kind of sign for him, a signal he heeded. "No, it's fine. You can talk." She kissed his cheek with a wet smack, forcing herself into a better headspace, an easier feeling, gobbling at his neck with her kisses, growling at him until he giggled and squirmed again.

"Katie. Here's the order sheet we started. Colin thinks they have hot sandwiches and soups too." Mark was standing just over her and the boys, but he turned and laid the sheet on the abandoned sign-in desk, the pen rolling as he set everything down. "We don't have a menu, but I'll do my best guessing."

"Sure," she said easily. "I'll figure something out."

"And the boys," Carrie added, gesturing to them. "I don't have any idea what they want."

Oh. They wanted her to order for the boys. Of course, and she should. She was their mother. If Castle were here, it'd be up to him, but it was up to her instead. 

She was about to reflect on how little she knew about what the boys liked, but the reality was - and she realized it right before she opened her mouth - the reality was that she knew a few things. 

"Well, Wyatt is the picky one. He eats with two fingers, and nothing that feels - wet or funny. So no tomatoes, that kind of thing. No condiments like mayo or mustard. He does like ketchup though. Don't you, baby?" She grinned at him and kissed his cheek loudly again, making him giggle and try to climb into her lap. She had to sit down for them both to fit, her arms around the boys on the scratchy industrial carpet. "James eats pretty much anything. But he's like Castle - the hot food, the meals? So if there's a meatball sub or something like that."

"Great," Mark said, looking a little bit proud. Of her. He was proud of her. Oh, God, that was kind of mortifying. "That's perfect." He had written it down on the sheet, and seemed poised to take her order as well. "And what about you? Something hot-"

"Um, no. Well." What did she want? What would she just love to close her eyes and sink- "If they have tomato soup? Yeah. Tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich." It was summer. It was the middle of the damn hottest month, and yet she was cold to the bone and she longed for her mother.

She wanted her mom.

"Mama?" James murmured, curling up into her side, fingers in her hair. "My mama."

"Yeah," she whispered. Cleared her throat. "And a Sprite, Mark. In a can if they have it, not a bottle. I - don't like the plastic." She shivered and tightened her arms around the boys. "A few bottles of water for these guys. We can refill their cups."

"My mama."

"Uh-huh, baby, I'm yours," she said, kissing his sweet face. "And Wyatt's. So you gotta share a little bit."

"Share a lot," came his voice. Castle. "I get some of that too."

Mark's face shadowed, but Carrie actually laughed. The boys' heads popped up like little meerkats and Wyatt stood on her thigh and called Castle's name.

"Sure, sure, fine. I can share with you, little puppy. Come here." Castle leaned over her, brushing lightly along her cheek with intent before he plucked Wyatt out of her lap. He held out his hand to her then and she took it, arm tightening around James, let him pull her to her feet.

"Making a lunch run," she told him, kissing his mouth where his lips were pressed flat with his concentration. "Tell Mark what you want."

"Cool," he nodded and she could tell his mind was elsewhere. On the results?

"Do we - know yet?" she whispered, heart catching in her lungs.

He shook himself and looked at her. Clear eyed. "No. No, nothing yet. It'll be a while. Colin is standing guard so we know Alex or Ben won't fuck with the images."

She nodded, but she wasn't, couldn't, relax.

He drew his arm around her and she came into him, the boy knocking into each other and giggling, wrestling each other way, and she could laugh a little. She could smile at their play.

They played. Before three weeks ago, she had never seen them play.

It had been a very good life-

Was.

It was a good life.

She was still here.

\-----

Castle raided the back work room for a large table and office chairs, arranging everything in the lobby where they'd made an impromptu camp-out. Since the front desk office chair could be elevated, Kate settled the boys in that one together with pillows stuffed into the backs and sides to prop them up, keep them in. They seemed to find this hilarious, giggling and messing with each other, delighted with everyone.

Carrie twisted the blinds closed while Mark set out their bags and drinks and began distributing food. Castle nudged Kate to sit down and when she leaned forward to pull her chair up, he saw the gold chain swing forward and glint in the light. It caught his breath, seeing it, and seeing the way her hand went instinctively to it and played at the chain.

Castle sat down as well, unwrapping James's meatball sub and prying it open so that he could use the knife and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Kate was on the corner from them, sitting at the side while Castle was at the foot, and he lamented the distance, but knew it was for the best right now - she needed space, a little space to collect herself. 

"Daddy," James said, propping his head on his hand and sighing. Watching the food and the work of Castle's knife.

"Yeah, buddy, it's coming," Castle said softly, leaning in to kiss the boy's forehead. He finished quickly, pushed the paper towards his son. "And here's your juice. Or - water? Kate, is this water?"

She glanced past Wyatt to him. "Yeah. Water. But I think Mark got a bottle of apple juice."

"I did," Mark interrupted, reaching behind him for the big brown bag. He rooted around and then came up with the juice, handed it over. "I filled their cups-?"

"Yeah, there was something about not giving them water," Castle muttered, shrugging. "I don't know. We looked it up, Kate and I. So we cut it with apple juice. Or vice versa, I guess really."

"Oh." Mark glanced to Carrie and she shrugged, but it wasn't like they had kids either. They didn't know. "Sure. Sorry."

"No problem," Castle said, already untwisting the tops from James and Wyatt's cups. He grabbed his own to-go cup of water and popped off the lid, dumped a little from each boy's into his own, then filled theirs with the apple juice. "Here we go. Wyatt, this one's yours, buddy."

Wyatt reached past his brother and curled his hand around his cup, dragged it across the table with a sly, rebellious look. When no one said anything to him about it clattering, he glanced between Castle and Kate, and then he looked at his brother.

James, for his part, also looked at Castle. Then his mother. 

Castle watched a moment, but he thought he understood what was going on here. James was the little barometer, and he could read the temperature of the room. Wyatt would push the envelope and then look to his brother to see what the score was.

“So long as you don’t tip it over and spill,” Castle warned, gesturing to the boy. “Have at it.”

James nudged his shoulder into Wyatt’s, some kind of communication going on there. Something being said between them. They both looked wary.

Castle found it amusing, despite everything. “Look, kid. I’m not saying go nuts, but a little noise ain’t gonna bother us. Right, Mommy?”

Kate was holding her cup of soup between her hands, hunched forward to inhale the steam. She lifted her head and glanced to the boys, brow furrowing. “What?”

Castle grinned and rubbed the top of James’s head. “See, guys? Not a problem.”

“What?” she said, sitting up a little. “I missed something.”

“Wyatt was trying to get a rise out of us. Knocking his cup around.”

“Did he spill it?” She glanced between the boys, straightened Wyatt’s sandwich and moved the pieces of turkey around as if to make it more appealing. “Eat up, baby. Stop dawdling. I know you’re hungry.”

“No, didn’t spill it,” Castle answered. “James, you too. Eat up. Nap time after this.”

James dipped his head forward, opening his mouth over a cut-up piece of meatball and taking it up with his teeth.

Kate laughed, and James’s head swiveled towards her. He was grinning around the meatball.

“Eat it, sweetheart,” she said warmly. Her smile was like love itself.

Castle reached under the table and patted James’s little leg, stroking his thumb along his knee. James wriggled in the chair like a puppy and pushed the meatball into his mouth with a palm.

“Good job, son,” he murmured, leaning in to knock his nose into James’s cheek. Wouldn’t kiss him right now, not with sauce smeared on his face, but he was a good kid. Made his mommy smile. “Love you.”

James gave him a rare and beautiful smile, ducking his head even as she chewed on his meatball.

And now Castle felt it too, the sense that the world was going to be just fine. They would beat it, whatever it was, because they had this. This love.

\-----


	3. Chapter 3

Kate was full.

They were going to do a blood test in a few hours, but right now, her belly was full.

Stupid, to be so enamored of it, but she was. She’d eaten the whole grilled cheese sandwich, the cheddar and colby jack dripping over her fingers and stringing out from her lips. And then the soup. It had tasted just like her mother’s, which meant straight from the Campbell’s can, but God, how wonderful.

She was full, and she could be receiving the worst news of her life in the next few hours, but her stomach was full and she was warm.

Hadn’t been the soup that had done that, though. 

It was the man who had gathered up their two sons and nudged her into a little infirmary off the main lobby where he had forced her to lie down on the futon with him. She hadn’t meant to do this, take a nap in the middle of everything, but while sleep wouldn’t come, she was pressed against Castle’s side with two boys draped over her chest.

She was warm, and her belly was full, and she had the boys with her, and it had been a long time since she’d had any thoughts outside of just those three things. Food, warmth, the boys. 

God. She knew it was pathetic. She did. But the door was closed and the Eastmans and Colin were in with Ben and Alex at the MRI machine, and there was going to be a needle to draw her blood and the boys’ as well, and all of that was a sluggish mix in her guts, but there was something soporific about having enough.

Enough.

She cupped the backs of her babies’ heads and breathed through the heaviness of their bodies on her chest, enough. 

Castle lifted his hand and combed her hair away from his mouth, back behind her ear. And then his thumb brushed under her eye and she realized she might be crying. She was. She was just so full.

She felt so full.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he said quietly. 

She sighed and turned her face into his jaw, her nose bumping his chin. 

“I know,” he said. “It’s not that. I know.”

It was and it wasn’t. “I’m happy,” she murmured.

“Glad you can be, at all-” He cut off, cleared his throat. She felt the vibrations of it against her forehead. He was stroking her hair while she held the boys against her, the angles all awkward but working for them anyway. 

She was happy and she shouldn’t be, but she’d found it somehow and it could be taken away from her anyway. She knew better than to be happy. Than to let herself feel it. But she’d done it anyway, been seduced into happiness, and now it was going to be-

Well, at least she’d had this. And knowing that made it easier somehow to say good-bye, but at the same time, no. She didn’t want to miss the boys in kindergarten or their first Halloween with costumes and trick or treating. God. Christmas. Just - the whole thing, having an actual Christmas, even if Castle didn’t do trees or lights or whatever, she didn’t know, people were weird with their traditions-

“What are you thinking about?” he murmured, nudging his chin against the socket of her eye. They were all over each other, all the time, and she’d missed that connection while everyone was getting MRIs. She hadn’t realized how much it’d been suppressed, dampened, until right this moment, feeling it alive and electric again between them.

“Christmas,” she said finally, letting herself speak it.

“Christmas?” He sounded bewildered, pleased? Hard to know, but she felt something of both thrumming between them. “What about it?”

“Just. I kinda want to make it to Christmas,” she muttered.

“You’re going to make it,” he growled back at her.

She elbowed his ribs and he grunted in frustration, but he shut up about it. She could feel the boys’ easy breathing on top of her, the slow expansions of their chests. She combed her fingers through their hair, at the napes of their necks, kissed first James and then Wyatt. James stirred, as if he might wake, but his mouth smacked and he fell back to sleep.

“What about Christmas?” Castle whispered.

“Wondering what hurts more. No Christmas at all, or a day of traditions that don’t include my mom and dad.”

“Fuck.”

She sighed and nudged her forehead against his chin. “Yeah.”

“The boys will like it, right?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you-” She huffed at herself, closed her eyes to keep that image out of her head. But it was too late. He would have looked exactly like Wyatt, same trusting blue eyes, same eagerness to be accepted, seeking attention. And he’d have gotten none of it. Nothing at all. The day here and gone. “Do you remember any time before - with your mom? Christmas with her maybe?”

“No. Nothing, Kate.”

He’d been older than the boys when he was taken from his mother, and yet he had nothing at all of her. Nothing. It was like a fist around her heart, both for him, and herself, and her boys who might not know her. They might only have stories. And while Castle would go out of his way to make his own memories come alive, the boys still wouldn’t have their own to fall back on.

“What are you supposed to do on Christmas?” he said. “No, I mean - what do you want to do on Christmas, because it doesn’t matter to me, Kate, not one bit. If you don’t want to do those traditions your parents did, it won’t make a difference to me. Or to them, either, you know? Because they don’t know any better. They’re babies.”

Thinking about Christmas seemed impossible. And yet, what popped into her head was Wyatt under the tree, yanking off their ornaments and digging into the presents, ripping the paper, hiding in the back when Castle went in after him. And James with his careful and serious attention as he unloaded his Christmas stocking, one thing after another, making piles for later.

“A tree,” she said finally, putting voice to the picture in her head.

“Yeah, a tree. We could go get one out of the woods in back. Cut our own.”

“Messy?”

“Huh, probably so. I’ll read up on it. Might have to contend with sap and pine needles falling. Drying out.”

“That’s what the tree stand is for,” she murmured. “Ours was a red base with green metal legs. You put water in the base every few days or so. Keeps the tree fresh.”  
“Did your dad cut down the tree for-”

“No,” she laughed, surprised, surprising the boys too, because they both twitched. She held her breath, but they didn’t wake. “No.” Quieter now. “We bought it from the lot. People come into the city and take over vacant lots with their trees, sell them.”

“Oh. Huh. I’ve - never noticed. Honestly, I can’t remember being in the States for Christmas. Or if I was, I was in the labs.”

“In the labs?”

“Diagnostics,” he muttered. His voice sounded grim, his body feeding tension. “Lab work, bloodwork, MRIs, whatever. Just maintenance checks. Usually around Christmas, if I remember right.”

“But when you were old enough, an adult, Castle... you and Colin at least?”

“Me and Colin what?”

“Did you not - do something? As a family.”

He gave a gruff laugh, but it didn’t sound amused. “No, honey, we’re not much of a family. We’re a - unit. He’s my brother in arms. Brother, yes, but not like... what we do is have each other’s back.”

“Ride or die,” she murmured.

His arm tightened around her. “Yeah.”

“Not much room for Christmas presents, I guess.”

He grunted, his mouth coming into her and pressing hard into her cheekbone. “Yeah, not a lot of room for normal stuff. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, her fingers stroking her sons’ soft necks. “Otherwise I’d - I don’t know that I’d be able to be here. Like this. None of this is normal. Your sons aren’t normal. Our - this - it’s not normal. I don’t think I could stand up to the pressure of normal.”

His kiss curved at her cheek. She felt the smile he pressed into her and felt her own answering in return.

“You like me,” he murmured.

She huffed, and tried to elbow him, but she didn’t have the leverage for it.

He just grinned and kissed her again, finding her mouth for something that sent her heart jumping.

\-----

He loved moments like this, a chance to be away, shut away from all the rest of them, from life itself. She couldn't do life itself all the time anyway, so at least there was an opportunity to just exist.

She had shifted to lie face to face with him, the boys curled tightly between them. He had noticed that they always laid right against each other, though they had ceased to sleep in that defensive fetal position. At least there was that. Kate was softly combing Wyatt's hair away from his forehead, the boy's mouth puckered with his cheek mashed against Kate's bicep. 

What he really loved was how her hand had worked its way under his neck and cheek so that his lips brushed the inside of her wrist, so that he spoke love right to the thump of her pulse where it carried to her heart.

"No," he answered. "I've always liked the idea of Thanksgiving, but Halloween is - well, it's my day job, right? Dress up in a costume and pretend to be someone you're not. So I get it, I get that it's all fantasy roleplay for people, and I see how lucky I am to be able to do that - Halloween every day of my life."

She actually laughed, a quiet thing, and he carefully draped his arm at her waist, tugged her a little closer. Wyatt might be crushed, but Kate didn't protest, and James had curled an arm around Wyatt's legs so that his body was trapped in the rungs made of their thighs.

"I guess you guys celebrated Independence Day, and like - Memorial Day. Those are big armed services holidays," she said, lifting her hand from Wyatt's head to rub Castle's arm, down his forearm to his hand at her hip and back to his elbow, caressing. He felt it like electricity and had to think a moment to answer her.

"No. We didn't do those either. He wasn't interested in making us feel part of the system, you know? We're supermen, like Nietzsche's Ubermensch. That was always the idea. We're beyond man, we don't play by their rules. We're - better than them. Which is how I could be conscience-less so long. It didn't plague, what I was doing, because he'd built us to believe we didn't have to account to them. There would never be reckoning." 

But there was. It was right here, in his arms, his reckoning. He was being called into account for all the things he'd done, his father had done, by these test results today. 

She was studying him, cataloging his facial expressions and his stories, parsing them for details, and all he could do was skim his hand up her hip and around to her shoulder, lay his palm at her neck where it was warm and beat for him.

Whatever she saw in him made her set her jaw, her eyes flashing with determination. "We'll celebrate those. For the boys, you would, right? We want them to feel part of things, part of humanity. I want them to feel responsible for their service to the world."

"Yes," he murmured, agreeing automatically but still. She was right. All of those holidays. "Even President's Day."

"Easter." She worked it around and then nodded. "Easter, because it's - a belief in magic. In making yourself new, resurrection. I don't care what you want to tell them about God or religion. But I believe they can make a difference in the world, and that starts with telling yourself it's possible. That it can be done-"

He grinned. "Baby, are you listening to yourself?"

She startled. "What?"

"Believe it can be done. Tell yourself it's possible."

She sucked in a harsh breath, eyes darting away from him. But she was chewing on her lower lip in that way he knew she meant she was listening. She was thinking.

"You believed you could get those boys out of there, free them, and you did. You did. Whatever it took, right? And you want them to have that same sense of determination - determinism - that Fate doesn't rule their lives. That you can change your fate. Well. Believe it. Believe it, Kate."

She dipped her forehead into him, crashing against his chin. He stroked the back of her head and gripped the knot of her hair where she had pulled it back for lunch. 

"We'll celebrate Independence Day," he said roughly. "Three weeks ago, Friday. Every year. Independence from that place, from him. That's the thing I want the boys to know, to believe in, to feel how much and how great the cost. Never forget."

She let out a shaky breath and her arm came and snaked around his shoulder, his neck, pulling herself into him, tugging him down to practically crush her - and Wyatt too.

"The boys," he murmured.

"Move them," she growled.

Oh. That. "O-okay," he stuttered. "Yes."

\-----

She watched as Castle pulled the blanket from the back of the futon and unfolded it on the floor. He bent over and grabbed something from the foot, and she saw he had brought the boys’ stuff in the room with them. He dug in the bag and produced the boys’ loveys, rag doll and bunny, and then he came back for the boys.

She lifted her arm, had to lift a thigh as well so that James could be untangled. She grinned at Castle as he rolled his eyes. He gathered up the sleep-limp boy and took him to the blanket on the floor, laid him down with his rag doll. He came back quickly for Wyatt, was a little more rough the second time, as if he was losing patience.

Kate reached down and popped open the button of her jeans, yanked down the zipper before Castle could even finish arranging the babies. She skimmed her hands into the waist of her jeans, pushed them down a little, lifted her knees just in time for Castle to turn around.

He groaned and came back to her on the futon, sitting so hard that the frame jostled. He gripped her thighs like he wanted to pry her legs apart and yet he laid his arms on her shins keeping them together. He was kissing the bare skin of her knees, one after another. “You look so beautiful. So damn beautiful, how damn hot your legs are, and your body like a panther, your eyes intent on me... And kinda slutty.”

She laughed, trying to keep quiet, and wriggled her toes at his armpits. “Get my pants off, Castle.”

He tilted his head and lifted an eyebrow, wrapped his fingers around her knee, tickling behind it so that she squirmed, those little flutters all the way down to her sex, making her insides clench.

“Castle, please,” she whispered, bucking her hips up.

His mouth ghosted her knee and he pulled off her jeans, keeping his arm around her legs, pressing her against his ribs. He skimmed the fingers of his free hand up her shins and down her thighs, laid his palm at the crotch of her panties.

“Castle,” she begged.

He lowered her legs to the bed. She was astonished at how - already - she could barely catch her breath. Already she was wet, wanting him, anything he wanted to give her.

His hands rucked up her shirt and spread across her ribs, just under her breasts. His thumbs scraped roughly over the cups of her bra, making her back bow.

He used the movement to pull her shirt off over her head, and then he was rolling on top of her. Kate groaned into the heated skin of his shoulder, closing her eyes, feeling her hips pop as they shifted wider to accept his weight.

He kissed her neck, a wet touch of his tongue, and she whined, already trembling. Oh God. Already trembling so hard.

His mouth licked along her her throat and she clutched his back, burrowing her hands under his shirt for the heat of him, the sinewy grace and strength of his muscles. He’d called her a panther but he felt like one, a wild beast, devouring her.

Down her throat to the top slope of her breast, teeth now so that she gasped. Her leg was twined with one of his, and it tangled when she jerked, but it also brought her hips up into his. The dark part of her, the part that needed, ground against him, the hard ridge of his erection.

But he was pushing his hands up under her bra and squeezing her breasts, harsh jolts over her nipples. She jerked, smashing her chin into the top of his head, but he hardly seemed to notice, just kept mouthing her breasts, sucking hard at the skin over her sternum.

She writhed, reaching under her back to pop the clasp of her bra. He growled and pushed up on an elbow, causing his hips to cant hard into hers. She groaned even as he ripped the bra from her, sort of, the straps tangling in one of her arms. 

“Leave it, leave it,” she gasped. “Get back here-”

He came down to her breast and opened his mouth over her nipple, making her keen. His hand slapped over her mouth, muffling her noise, and he sucked at her breast. She felt it like a razor-thin wire was tied between her nipple and her sex, tugging almost to pain as he suckled at her.

And yet she found herself cupping her breast as if to push it deeper into her mouth. He sucked harder, teeth scraping her nipple, tongue manipulating so that her milk came. Her hips were constantly rocking now, the elusive connection of their groins. 

She gripped the back of his head with her free hand, realized he was speaking into her breast, murmuring words of love and lust across her skin. With her milk in his mouth.

Fuck, fuck. She was losing-

He grinned and lifted from her breast with a tear of his teeth. Her hand clutched at the back of his neck, her eyes wide as she stared up at him.

“You taste good,” he husked. “I want to feast on you.”

“Oh, yes-”

He dragged the panties from her hips in a long movement, tangling and rough, and she kicked her feet trying to help, help, just get the damn things off-

His mouth touched the top of her thigh and she jerked, startling with the sensation of the stubble at his jaw. She clutched his shoulder but he was parting her thighs, dragging them open by his grip on her knees. She opened her eyes and rolled her head down to see him, watch him settling between her legs.

He kissed her inside thigh, kissed high up at the crease where her hip met her thigh met her sex. He scratched his jaw against her curls, a rough catch that made her rock against his face, grip his ear.

“I got you, baby, relax.” 

She whined and realized her knee was caught under his armpit, caught where she tried to keep closing against him. She was tangled in him, so tangled, helplessly caught.

His fingers came to her sex and spread her lips with two fingers, opening her to him, wide open. So open that she felt her arousal dripping out of her, dripping, soaking-

He caught it with his tongue, and then he french-kissed her sex.

Lewd. Animal. Intense. 

Fingers feathered against her, light strokes, catching her runoff and smearing her thighs with it. His mouth sucked and caressed, gentle and then fierce, his tongue-

His tongue inside her, oh, 

Oh, God.

She burst into climax, curling up around his head, one hand still squeezing her own breast.

\-----

She was so beautiful.

When she came, her thighs always tightened around him, wherever he was, the clutch of her strong legs gripped him. And from here, he nudged his nose into her clit as he suckled the last of her - her nectar - from her body, and he could see the bright flush up her breasts and the way her mouth dropped open, her lashes slitted like she could barely stand the onslaught of stimuli.

And then, fuck, fuck, she was twisting her nipple with two fingers and riding the arc of her orgasm with her hips, and it was like a gift. A precious, rare gift - of fucking hot sensuality from a woman who did not have an off switch.

Castle palmed her thighs and eased her leg off his shoulder, carrying her down to the futon’s lumpy mattress once more. She was sweat-slicked behind her knee, the crease of her ass, the small of her back, and when he trailed a kiss over hip and belly, he tasted salt in her navel as well.

She was so wild. The intensity of her gutted him, made him stiff for her all the time. He could fuck her senseless given half the time, but he reined it back.

This was for her, right now, this time away. This was to take some of the bite out of her bark, take the edges off, just a little. Just enough to give her back that control she was so very good at.

He crawled slowly back up her body, letting the material of his shirt and black cargo pants rub against her bare skin. She shivered and clutched at his back, her hands under his shirt and pressing against him like she could remold his muscles and sinews and tendons.

He kissed the curve of one rib and felt the weight of her breast at his temple. It was erotic, and he was overwhelmed by the urge to rub his face in her breasts.

So he did. 

She gasped and curled up around him, clutching both ears, her name a rough litany. 

Breasts were sensitive after orgasm. Had he not realized that before?

Castle licked a wet line between her nipples and had her squirming again. Almost out of her own body with it.

Either sensitive or especially so or after his nursing at them or the stress of the day - some perfect storm to give her such a hyper-sensitive reaction to just his jaw rubbing at her skin like this-

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her knee jerking into his ribs. 

Obviously trying to keep a handle on herself but not doing a very good job. He settled down at her breasts and worked his jaw between them, sucking at her skin through his teeth and biting, little nips of flesh even as he ground his stubble against her nipples.

Her hips were rocking now. Looking for him, for something. He was heavy between her legs, but she was still moving, still writhing with every rough kiss at her breasts.

So he walked his fingers down her body and over her hip, rested there for a moment while she devolved to whines in her throat. He had to smother her sounds, just enough to keep it muffled, what they were doing, keep the boys from waking, but it didn’t stop him from cupping her between her legs.

She cried out - but into his neck, her mouth open at his tendon and her teeth sinking into him even as his skin vibrated with the echo of her voice.

He began to stroke, the thick gush of her fluid, so wet for him, making his fingers slip, penetrating her shallowly until she cried out and shook under him. She was coming apart just that fast, her body shuddering up to meet his, damp and tired pleasure clinging to her.

She gasped and fell back to the mattress, her eyes lazy on him, and he lowered himself down at her side. She hummed something and curled into him, insinuating his limbs between his, her face at his neck. Her lashes were tickling his skin.

She was beautiful, and he petted her hair down and pressed his palm to her sweat-warm back and kissed her where he could.

She didn’t sleep, but he thought she was drifting at least. Easy, or as easy as she could be.

\-----

Kate dressed slowly, drawing it out just because he liked to watch. He liked to touch even more, she knew, but he was somehow keeping his hands to himself. His eyes devoured her, every movement, the slow slide of her panties over her knees and up her thighs, the tuck of her pelvis to make them snug. The snap of the elastic as she released the waistband.

And then she remembered he had chosen her underwear this morning, had pulled clothes out for her to wear and brought them back to the room.

She sauntered over to him on the futon, clad only in bra and panties, and she hooked her arm around his neck. His face tilted up to her, eyes meeting hers, for which she was absurdly grateful, how he looked at her like she was delicious but then he also just looked at her. At her eyes. With awareness of her as a created thing, as a body with a soul and not just a body.

He dropped his gaze and leaned in to lightly kiss her stomach. "I love you," he sighed, and his cheek came to her abs with the full weight of his head. 

She caressed his jaw and combed through his hair, kept his head against her. "Well, that kind of ruins what I was gonna say."

"What were you going to say?" His words were mumbled against her hip. "Tell me. Tell me, tell me-"

"Okay, okay," she groused, pinching his ear. He didn't even flinch. "I was just going to torment you for picking out my underwear this morning." He did flinch at that, and she felt the shiver down his back, wondered if his laziness was all an act. How much he must want her, and how he'd touched her without taking anything for himself. "I knew black was your favorite color."

He laughed, but his hands squeezed on her hips, a tight grip she couldn't have escaped. If she'd wanted to. But she didn't. Didn't want to move. What she wanted was to sink down over him and finish this thing - finish him - inside her. 

She realized she was thinking about sex with him in terms of what was allowed. Was she allowed to do that? 

And that made her mad. 

"I do love you in that color," he murmured at her belly. His mouth brushed a kiss, meant to be light, or tender, but instead it was electric. "I love you in all the colors. Just love you. But I'm not sure it was entirely a conscious choice on my part. I think they were at the top of the bag. This lace though-" He popped the side of her panties and rubbed his thumb under the hem, right along her hip bone. "This lace is killing me."

"I want you," she choked out. "I want you right now. I can't - can't not. It's not fair to tease me and then not let me have you."

His stunned face lifted to hers, mouth open. "I - what?"

"Please?"

His features rearranged, something primal, furious, and he yanked on her hips and brought her down hard. She tightened her arms around him and pressed her knees in against his ribs, already felt that clawing urge for more, harder, make me.

His mouth clashed with her teeth but his kiss was possessive, unrelenting. He would not yield, and she let herself for long enough to feel overwhelmed, dominated, and then she shoved him to the mattress and held him down. 

He was panting, fingers dragging at her panties, trying to yank them off of her again, and she let her hips rock against his chest just to see the flare in his eyes, the eruption of his need.

He'd been hiding it all this time, folding it up and putting it away, and that wasn't okay with her.

"Always take me," she husked, dropping down to kiss him. His moan trembled through her own body, vibrations that made her tight everywhere, clenching. "Always take me. It's not fair to be teased and promised so much and then get put away-"

"No," he gasped. "Never. Never put you away-"

"Then take me."

"I want you," he moaned. He sounded desperate, pleading; he sounded like he just couldn't take it any longer. "I want you so much, Kate. Please-"

"Get your pants off," she told him, reaching down between them to force the issue.

His hands left her hips - her panties were jammed around one of her knees - and he worked fast at his button and zipper, hips arching as he pushed them down. She didn't let him wait until he had them off. She palmed one of his thighs for stability and then she sat up over him, caressed his cock with her fingers. His hips bucked again, and they jostled. She gave him a rough pass of her hand, a drag of his head through her thick wetness, and then she pushed down on him.

Castle hissed her name and his eyes rolled back, his whole body trembling.

He was going to come.

Already. He was going to come. 

Yes. 

She wanted him gone, gone - she wanted him coming inside her because he just couldn't stop. She never wanted him to stop-

She bore down on him, leaning forward to plant her hands on his chest. He growled her name and his hips thrust, and now she rocked, eased him back and forth inside her, making room for him. Castle gave a strangled noise and gripped her arms.

His eyes flared open.

"Come," she insisted. "Right now, Castle. Because you want me too, you've wanted me this whole time, you lo-"

He cried out as he orgasmed, a short sharp thing that he buried in her neck, clutching her down to him even as he rocked up. Jerking, thrusting, fucking her as it went on. 

She hadn't expected the feeling to bloom so fiercely inside her. For it to spread from her womb to her belly to her lungs and heart, for it to make her burn with the sting of tears and the lack of breath.

For it to feel so much like triumph, and joy, and love.

She held him against her, inside her, and rolled to put her spine to the back of the futon, his body heavy over hers. As if he could never recover.

Her blood was roaring.

\-----


	4. Chapter 4

She touched her mouth his neck, his chest, his shoulder, little points of contact that sparked under his skin and started his blood moving once more. He’d been dazed, but she was rousing him, and he drew a shuddering breath and tried to move enough so she could breathe.

Kate patted him on the ass as he shifted onto his side, but then she rubbed at his hip and came to his groin. He sighed as she tucked him back inside his boxer briefs, a movement both practiced but so unfamiliar at the same time. Erotic but - tender. Made his heart thump.

She smoothed the material over his crotch and her fingers curled at the back of his thigh, still touching him. Still tender with him. He moved to kiss her forehead but instead got the top of her head as moved. He grunted with surprise when she tugged on his pants.

She kissed his jaw, her nose nudging into him. “Lift, baby?”

He got an elbow under him and she pulled his pants up, making his ears burn. Not that it was weird, but it was just - intimate. After everything, for her to zip him back up again, button his pants, smoothing the fabric, her body close... 

God, he was pathetically in love with her.

He wrapped his arms around her, drew them closer. She untangled from him just enough to cradle the side of his face, combing his hair back from his forehead, the flop of bangs where it was longer. Her thumb rubbed under his cheek as she studied him.

“You okay?” she said.

“Yeah. Be okay.”

She didn’t smile, but he felt the regard of her eyes like sunlight, and he soaked it up.

“You cold?” he whispered, rubbing her back.

“Will be,” she answered, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Naked here.”

“Let me help,” he said, wanting to do the same for her.

“You gonna dress me now, Castle?”

He huffed but- “Yeah.” A little shrug as sheepishness came over him. Fuck, his ears were on fire. “Can I?”

She stroked her thumb under his eye socket. “Yeah. Course, baby.”

He couldn’t believe her sometimes. How she could say of course like it was matter of fact what he was allowed, what she wanted from him-

No boundaries. Damn. She had no boundaries. 

“Soon, Castle. Getting chilled.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughed, kissing the tip of her nose. It was cold already, and he rubbed her back and shifted, sitting up again. She propped her head on her hand and watched him, and he tossed her a little saucy look that made her grin.

He tried not to be distracted by the picture she made, naked and reclining on the black fabric-covered mattress. Her hair was in a jumble past her shoulders, her breasts heavy enough for gravity to give her some serious cleavage - holy fuck - serious cleavage. And she was tracing his every movement with her eyes, her lashes thick and full, her lips parted and smudged with their pleasure.

Fuck. Pay attention.

Castle found her bra thrown off the side of the futon, her panties at the foot. He gathered her jeans and the t-shirt and came back to her at the low-slung futon. She held her hand out to him and he took it, drew her to a sitting position. 

He knelt at her feet and placed her heels in his lap, slid lace panties up her calves. She lifted her hips for him and he skimmed the lace over that beautiful bush, kissed the bow at the waistband.

She stroked her fingers through his hair and rubbed her thumbs at his eyebrows when they rose. She said nothing, and he said nothing, and he wondered what she was thinking, looking at him like that.

He sat back on his heels and patted the tops of her thighs, dragged his hands down to her knees to tug her to the edge. She startled, gripping the mattress with both hands, but he had only needed to pull her close enough to work her jeans up her calves. 

She watched him silently, leaned back when he needed her too, lifted her hips so he could tug them over her hips. He had a terrible terrible thought that maybe she had been dressed in the facility, but the placid green spark of her eyes spoke differently.

He braced his elbows on the mattress and framed her ribs with his hands, his fingers in the intercostal spaces. She gripped his biceps and leaned in over him, softly kissed his cheek.

He pressed his cheek to hers and she let out a little breathy sigh, slumping into him. He wrapped an arm around her back, shifted her knees, and brought her into his lap on the floor. She hummed, something amused in her tone, and he brought her bra up.

She put her arms through the straps and then pressed the cups to her breasts, a little heft of adjustment that made his cock twitch in response. He ignored it, hooked her clasp at the back, and let her adjust the straps and cups again. Last was her t-shirt, the blue one he loved because it made her eyes burn green-gold in their dark sky... and because he knew she looked like she matched him in that color.

Like they were the perfect complement.

She did most of the work pulling her shirt on, but he straightened the v-neck collar between her breasts and tugged down the hem. She snaked her arm around him before he was done and she leaned against him.

For a moment, it was just the two of them touching and pressing close, her fingers smoothing over his shirt and his hand sneaking its way up under hers. He widened his thighs and cradled her, kissed the scar at her eyebrow.

She brought her hand up and cupped the side of his face. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something - he longed to hear a word from her - but one of the boys stirred on the blanket and croaked.

Kate froze. 

He froze, hoping the kid would go back to sleep, but no dice.

Another whimpering noise and Kate jerked upright. “James,” she breathed, sliding off his lap and knee-walking to the pallet. He came after her, hating to lose that connection, but James was giving his mother a pitiful look and calling her name.

She lifted the boy into her arms and cuddled him, rocking side to side slowly with her face bent to his. 

Castle hung back, sank to his heels again, watching them, unwilling now to interrupt.

“Daddy.”

“Daddy’s right here, baby. Look.”

He oriented to the boy, surprised by James asking after him, and then stunned when James lifted an arm for him. He came in closer, not mistaking that invitation as a suggestion to take the boy out of her arms. But he cupped the back of the boy’s head and kissed James’s temple.

“Daddy.”

“Yeah, kid. Probably for the best.” She shot him a look in askance, but he only shook his head. “Chafing,” was all he said.

She laughed, and now Wyatt was stirring, feeling the lack of his brother and hearing their conversation. James tightened his grip on Kate, which was kind of sweet, and Castle leaned past them to grab Wyatt and give him some love too.

“Guess we should go,” Kate sighed. “It’s been nearly three hours.”

“Damn,” he muttered, shifting James in his arms so he could curl at his shoulder. “Yeah. I - guess so.”

“Thank you, Castle,” she said, her eyes on him.

“For wha-”

“Don’t.”

He closed his mouth, brow furrowing. But he knew, and she was right. That would cheapen it somehow.

So he said what he longed to say, what he wanted to say every time she touched him or looked at him like that or smiled at the boys. He said it because it was true, and because she deserved to feel loved.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Kate, and I’m going to fight for you. I will never stop fighting for you.”

\-----

She sat on the visitor's chair inside what must have been an exam room, her legs crossed and James in her lap, happily munching on cheerios Carrie had produced. He had leaned his back against her so that he reclined, and Castle had called him a skinny Buddha baby. He did kind of give off that quiet and reserved calm, a sense that he knew things no one could possibly know.

She smoothed down the hair that were beginning to curl at his ears, kissed the top of his head. Castle had sat down with her in a rolling chair that must have been for the doctor - however this system had worked, outpatient elixir use or case studies - or maybe even Castle and his brothers. She hadn't thought to ask him if he'd ever been here for his MRIs.

Alex and Ben had been separated for some reason that Colin hadn't yet explained, and Col had taken Ben off-site to 'get something'. Since Castle trusted whatever Colin's mysterious reasoning was, Kate assumed it was necessary, either to keep Alex and Ben from devising some kind of plan or to procure some item from another location.

The lightbox was on; everyone was looking at her. Shooting her glances. As if checking her stability. 

Or maybe just pity. She could deal with the critical assessment, but the pity pissed her off.

James patted her knee and craned his neck to give her a shy smile. She huffed and leaned over, kissed his cheeks for worrying about her, checking in with her. Whatever it was he was doing, skinny Buddha baby.

James hummed and pressed his cheek into her chin, and she let out a breath, feeling it, the thing he was doing to keep everyone calm. 

Castle's hand came un-discreetly to her knee and stayed there, heavy, squeezing a little. She turned to look at him and saw he was leaning forward, an elbow on his knee to keep a grip on Wyatt, a fist in the back of the boy's overalls (where in the world did those overalls come from? God, they were adorable, dark wash, his striped shirt underneath). 

"Hey," Castle said, tugging on Wyatt a little but looking at her. "You ready?"

"Yeah, bring it on-" She glanced to Alex, the medical charts he was holding so proper and professional-looking. What-ever. He was such a-

She knew what he was, spineless. He was spineless, and he'd weaseled his way around his own ethics, made everything relative. She-

Oh. No. That was Castle in her damn head. She shot the man a look and caught his glower, elbowed him. "Hush," she murmured, gesturing for him to chill out with a look at the boys.

Immediately it turned off. Or - not off - not gone - but it was dialed back. Like the volume had dropped sharply and the relief of not having the noise almost made her whole head silent.

"So weird," she muttered, shaking her head at him. "Alex, start with the boys. Them first."

Alex blinked, apparently caught off-guard by her assertion, and she saw even how Eastman too was surprised by her. Carrie was sitting on the exam table, higher than everyone, while Mark leaned against it, and she knew they had claimed those spots purposefully to keep her from having the place of honor.

She didn't mind that kind of pity. But if they'd just stop being surprised every time she had something to say.

"Well, okay, first the twins," Alex said. He popped two different films onto the light box and suddenly they were looking at what seemed to be incredibly detailed X-rays, more than bones, fluid and flesh and the in-betweens. 

She knew immediately which one was James's scan. Even blurry, God, it stood out.

Everyone went quiet.

"As you can see," Alex said, clearing his throat and tapping the scan. "Something interesting going on with Wyatt."

Wait.

Wyatt?

\-----

Wyatt squawked, obviously feeling their eyes on him, special or not.

Castle leaned forward, taking his hand off Kate to grab Wyatt by the arm and draw him back. "Come here," he murmured, ignoring the boy's protest and settling him in his lap. "Stay, kid. Need you to stay."

He grunted and squirmed, tried to get down, but when Castle wouldn't let him, he huffed and gave it up, chewing on the bright red lid of the plastic container that held his snack. "Dad-dy," he whined, rubbing the back of his head against Castle's shirt as if to lodge his official protest.

"Alex," Castle started gesturing to the MRI. "What is that exactly?"

Alex shook his head, still marveling at the scan. "I don't have any clue. Not the first idea. The boys' last scans were normal - normal for them anyway. They have more activity in the frontal lobe, as well as an enlarged hypothalamus. About double the size of the usual."

"Double the size?" Carrie spoke up. "Hypothalamus is automatic functions, right? Blood pressure, sweating, sleep-"

"Among other things," Alex nodded. "But yes, body rhythms, hormones, even some memory function, as well as arousal - wakefulness and attention, that is - and energy consumption, learning, even fear responses. Things that you don't exactly have conscious control over - well, some of us do. Castle especially, and the twins."

Wyatt gave a little shiver, barely noticeable, but his head pushed back against Castle's chest.

Because Alex had said, the twins. Castle thought, actually, that both boys had reacted to that last time as well. In Alex's voice. Even Castle, the first few times he'd called them boys when he had been addressing them directly, they had done the same kind of wary shying away. 

"So you don't know what that is?" Kate said. "Why it looks like that in Wyatt?"

"Obviously I know the area. Caudate nucleus - mostly Parkinson's sufferers know this one well because it controls motor function-"

Motor function. But James was the one with the gross motor skills.

"-but lately research suggests it deals with learning, memory, sleep, and social behavior."

Social behavior registered with Castle. But he wasn't going to discuss this out loud with Alex in the room, not when he just couldn't be trusted. He laid his hand on Kate's knee when she opened her mouth, shot her a warning look.

She frowned.

Eastman gestured to the scan. "So what does it do to him? Being bigger, more activity?"

"No idea," Alex said, almost happily. He looked like he'd sat down in front of a machine and was delighted to be taking it apart. "Your guess is as good as mine, though mine might be better educated. Further tests over time will show-"

"No," Castle said, cutting into his brother's conversation.

Kate looked at him, but there was relief on her face; she agreed.

"There will be no more tests," Castle told the room. "We've already decided. Kid breaks his arm and needs an X-ray, that's one thing. But there will be no more procedures, tests, exams - not for these kids, not just to see over time."

Alex looked stymied, frustrated, but he merely stared at the scans and worked his jaw, said nothing in response.

"Other than that one area, they're clear, aren't they?" Kate prompted. "No lesions, no holes, no activity where it shouldn't be. They're healthy, they're fine."

Alex touched Wyatt's scan with a finger and Castle could see the curiosity that burned in him, how badly he wanted to investigate this thing to the last. Figure it out. Castle would have to take those records, wipe the MRI machines of data; his brother couldn't be allowed with that kind of information. 

"I don't think you understand how... impossible they are," Alex said finally. There was something in his voice, something dark that spoke of decades. Years of not being stable. That's what it was, and Castle knew he had been lucky, of the four of them, he had gotten off so damn lucky.

"Impossible," Kate echoed, a laugh bubbling out of her. She sounded as old as Alex in that moment. "God, do I understand how impossible they are. Of anyone."

Castle slid his hand down her thigh and flipped his palm over; she took it and squeezed.

"He really did it," Alex said quietly, shaking his head. "He finally made it work like it was supposed to. Perfectly. There's nothing wrong with them. Whatever this is going on in Wyatt's brain... maybe it's part of it, maybe James will exhibit symptoms later that-"

"No," Castle said. "You won't convince either of us, Alex. You think a guilt trip would work on Kate? After what she's done for them, she could never lift a finger for the rest of their lives and we'd all still be so damn grateful for the fucking sacrifice. So don't even try it. Wyatt is special, James is special - they're impossible boys. We'll take life as it comes, just like the rest of the miserable human race."

Wyatt suddenly twisted in his arms and got his feet under him, stood on Castle's thighs, surveying everyone in the room. Castle patted the boy's back, watching him, thinking about social behaviors, thinking about how Wyatt took his cues from the room, from his brother, constant feedback from his brother's special ability.

Impossible boys.

"Now mine," Kate said then. Since Castle had been forced to release her hand to steady Wyatt on his lap, he glanced over at her when she spoke.

Alex tugged down the scans, replacing them solemnly in a folder, laid the folder on the little counter in the room next to the sink. "Now for yours," he said, and opened another folder, withdrawing a whole stack of scans.

A whole damn stack.

The light box crackled suddenly, a short in the wiring or a surge in the power, and the sound and flicker it made caused them all to jump.

And then Kate let out a hard breath and unfolded her legs, sat up straighter in the chair. James was still content with his cheerios, mashing them into his face with his palm, but he was watching her too, eyes on his mother.

The first scan went up on the light box and Kate was rigid. Alex paused, his fingers splayed at the bottom of the image, and turned a hesitant look their way.

"Alex," Castle warned. No fucking around.

"I... don't know how to explain this," Alex answered him, him, his eyes locking on Castle's. "I don't know what it means."

"Just say it."

"She has the same brain activity as Wyatt. No, different, of course, and her hypothalamus was kicking in hard, I know, but - but look."

And there it was under Alex's finger - the same caudate nucleus, nearly the same size, same angry storm of activity. 

"Whatever it's doing, it's doing to both of them."

\-----

“Is it dangerous?” Kate asked, frowning as she studied the scan. She didn’t see - anything. It made no sense to her, one way or another. It was just a brain. “I mean, Wyatt’s not - I don’t get it.”

“But no holes,” Castle got out. “Right. I don’t see damage. I don’t see-”

“No, no, nothing like mine.” Alex gave her a strange look as he said it and she wondered if she was supposed to feel sympathetic for him. She didn’t; either because of Castle or because of herself, she didn’t know. She just didn’t - care. 

“Show me,” Castle said gruffly, standing up from the chair with Wyatt in his arms. “Show me exactly.”

Kate jumped up, carrying James with an arm braced under his bottom while he ate steadily on his cheerios. “And me. I want to know.”

Castle glanced at her, approval flushing his face so that she glared at him. He ducked his head and turned back to Alex, but she bumped his shoulder, jostled him until his eyes darted to her again.

Thank you, she mouthed. 

He gave a wan smile and they both flinched when Alex slapped another scan up against the light box.

“This is my brain, as of - nine weeks ago,” Alex informed them, tapping the scan.

“Oh, God.” Carrie sat up straighter. “Alex.”

He studied the scan for a long moment, and Kate studied him, recognizing for once just how much-

Castle was making it extremely difficult to feel sorry for Alex. His sense of injustice and disloyalty, of having been betrayed by his brother - it bled into everything. Kate shifted James in her arms and pressed her shoulder to Castle’s, hoping to settled him out.

“Well,” Alex said finally. “C’est la vie.”

Kate swallowed roughly and cupped the back of James’s head. “Alex. I...” She had no idea what to say; the words meant nothing.

He used a finger to touch the scan. “It’s more noticeable on the real-time video. But here - and here - these two. Two holes. Already, in the MRI, Ben cycles through the sequence of decision-making comic strips - it plays on a visor before my eyes - and the frontal lobe activity is being run by my emotional elements.”

“That’s good, though,” Carrie said, hopping down from the exam table. “That’s how we make decisions. Unconscious choices are all based on emotional value systems. If you can’t make emotional priorities for things, you wind up having purely raw data without the ability to assign value.”

Alex gave a short nod. “Which is true, yes. But if you remember, the frontal lobe is the center for inhibition and logic. So instead of making my decisions based on a healthy balance of emotionally-assigned values and logical processing, the irrational systems are taking over. Less inhibitions, less skilled decision making.”

Carrie crossed her arms over her chest. “Basically, your unconscious choices are being hijacked.”

“Basically.”

“You’ve just told us we can’t trust you,” Carrie explained. “Did you mean to do that?”

Alex merely stood there.

“Maybe not,” Castle said quietly. “But it doesn’t change anything, Alex. Already decided against trusting you. Too much has happened to go back.”

“I understand,” Alex answered, but his eyes were on the scans, side by side with Kate’s own.

She could see now where her brain was whole while his was not. She could see those elements. “So this caudate nucleus. It won’t kill me.”

“You won’t be making stupid irrational decisions with no will power, no. You won’t go slowly insane, no.”

“But?” she asked. 

“No but.” A mild and bland glance to her. “I have no idea. If we did a few tests on Wyatt’s-”

“No,” she said easily. “No.”

Not on Wyatt.

“Then it’s all up in the air. Who knows what the fuck happens to you, Kate.”

Castle growled and stepped forward, his body - and Wyatt’s - between her and Alex. She pressed into Castle’s shoulder and nudged him back, but he didn’t seem to want to go.

“Castle,” she said, a warning.

He glanced back to her and shifted. “Okay. But. No. Not okay. What happens to you is more than just-”

“Castle.” Not Wyatt. Not ever with Wyatt.

She could see him deflate. The boy was hanging onto his neck, sitting up tall in Castle’s arms, unconcerned with all this talk about his brain.

“Me and Wyatt,” she said, shrugging at Castle. “Whatever it means. Whatever life has in store for us, like you said.”

“Not for you,” he growled. “We can - fix this or - we can do something to figure out-”

“I’m not saying we don’t pay attention, figure it out. But-” She shrugged again. What did it matter? She wasn’t going to lose her conscience, wasn’t going to flip out and hurt her children because of holes in her brain. “I feel like this was a win for me, Castle. Don’t you get it?”

Castle sighed, shoulders slumping. “No, I - well, yes. It’s - so good. Good news. But...”

She turned to Alex. “So what does this mean for me? I’m not stable on the elixir like Wyatt is-”

Alex growled and scrubbed both hands down his face. “Wyatt’s not on the elixir. He is the elixir. Don’t you guys get it?”

She blinked, James shifting in her arms, pushing away the snack container of cheerios - which Eastman managed to catch before it could fall.

“The twins are elixir incarnate. They embody everything we have to do just to get ourselves to that perfect state - which, of the four of us, only Richard has managed to do in any way close to stable.”

Kate glanced at Wyatt, the boy playing with his lips so he could make silly sounds, babbling a little in Castle’s arms. And James, who was kicking his feet as he tried to turn around and cuddle against her chest.

“Impossible boys,” Alex sighed, that look falling over him again, that look of barely suppressed jealousy. “If I could just look at their case histories, take MRIs every year, like a simple wellness visit-”

“We said no,” Kate snapped.

“But think about what’s at stake. The kind of good this information could do the world. The advances in diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s - diseases that hijack the brain just like - how impossible this all is, but with those boys-”

“If they’re so impossible, if they’re perfect incarnations of the elixir, and yet they’re different,” Castle spoke up. “Yet their brain functions aren’t the same, markedly so, then you explain to me how any of this could possibly be replicated.”

Alex frowned. 

“The answer is that it can’t be,” Castle went on. “You have no fucking control group. You just have two boys whose DNA was altered from the beginning. But you know as well as I do that things happen in utero to alter blood chemistry, brain formation, dopamine receptors, hormone levels - fucking hell, Alex. It can’t be replicated. At all. It’s fucking guesswork.”

“It would be a lot more balanced and researched than mere guesswork. That’s the scientific method, Richard. You start with a hypothesis and you work-” 

“You’re desperate to continue the program,” Eastman spoke up. His voice was quiet, and he hadn’t used it much so far, but when he did - even Kate went still. “You’re going to say anything to keep this research going.”

Castle shot Eastman a blazing look, assurance and justification. “He’s right. To get what you want, you pop Beckett’s chart up there and you make wild accusations that are nothing more than misdirection. Her brain activity in one region is the same as Wyatt’s. How many other regions look the same? There are biologically inherited traits like the disgust response, fear response, that are going to show up on these kids’ scans the exact same way they show up on hers. She’s their mother.”

Alex laid a hand over the top of the chart where he’d stored those scans, scans Kate was itching to get away from him. But Alex took a deep breath and answered with a certain air of measured calm that spoke of practice.

“This is more than just inherited traits. The twins are the next giant leap forward for us. For mankind. And yes, I think studying them can save me. Yes. But it can also save Kate.”

She swallowed roughly and snagged Castle by the back of his shirt, making a fist even as she shifted James to her other arm. 

She was not using her sons to maybe save her life, her life which was only maybe threatened by something still as of yet unknown.

Castle wouldn’t look at her. “How. How does studying them save her?”

“I bet if we drew their blood, made a transfusion bag that we mixed with saline and plasma, I bet it would be safer on her than say a shot of the elixir, or even a slow-release bag via IV port. Transfusion is medically safer-”

“I’m not vampiring my children,” Kate snapped. “Not for you, not for me, not for anyone.”

Castle. She would for Castle, wouldn’t she? And yet-

“A transfusion-”

“No, Castle,” she growled. “You know what will save me? Trial and error, just like it’s been for the last three years. Use the data, understand the data, and move forward-”

“I am not doing this just like it’s been done for three years,” Castle hissed. “That is a surefire way to get you killed.”

She set her jaw but Castle looked mutinous. She didn’t think she could win. For the first time, she didn’t think he was on her side. “Castle.”

“We will not shoot you up with varying degrees of elixir and just see what fucking works. If an infusion can stabilize your systems in a safer method than elixir injection, then we will sure as hell do that.”

“Not from me, not with their-”

“Kate,” Carrie cut in softly. “It would be a finite amount. Think of what they would be giving in blood over the years - just in wellness check-ups, sick visits, chem tests, and even blood donation. Just as any normal child would. Only they won’t be, because they can’t. Not without people finding out what they can do.”

She stared at Carrie.

Mark jumped in. “And in theory, since I saw that the boys are the same blood type, double the amount for less work. Less can be drawn from each of them.”

“We’re not taking blood from my kids in the hope it saves-”

“Yes, we are,” Castle said. “Yes, we most certainly are.”

“Kate, sweetie, wouldn’t you give blood if you thought it would, at all, help them?”

“Of course,” she cried. “I have. It’s not the same. It doesn’t go in reverse-”

“But it does,” Castle said, crowding into her with Wyatt. “You think the boys don’t want their mother? You think they’d choose to not?”

She wavered, tangled by Wyatt who was leaning out into her, trying to dislodge James from her side. 

“They would choose you, Kate, honey. They have chosen you, repeatedly, even starved themselves to have you. Some blood being drawn is nothing in comparison.”

She closed her eyes, the feeling of Wyatt’s growing frustration as he tried to get to her, the feeling of Castle’s insistence, and under that, somewhere small, her own voice. Her own voice which cried out against using them.

“Mommy, me,” James said from her arms. “Me, Mommy.”

“See, baby? James is already volunteering. Aren’t you, Jay?”

Wyatt growled and finally got both hands at the back of her neck, clinging tight so Castle couldn’t pull him away. “You, Mommy. My Mommy.”

And she realized that was James’s usual line, pointing her out, while Wyatt was the one who usually pointed her attention to himself. 

They had switched.

It was a coincidence, but it wasn’t.

It wasn’t.

“One time,” she said finally. “And if there aren’t enough positive effects, never again. Castle, do you hear me? Never again.”

\-----


	5. Chapter 5

"Okay, well, we can do that here," Alex started.

"No," Carrie told him. "We won't be doing that here. I will. I've done this before, and Mark is trained as a paramedic. Alex, I don't think it's a good idea that you're involved. We'll minimize temptations for you."

"I'm trained too," Castle spoke up, his heart pulsing in his throat like a live animal. He could taste his fear, his relief - he was so damn relieved. So relieved. If Eastman and Carrie hadn't been here, he wasn't sure this would've happened. "It will just be us."

Kate was still standing before him with both boys hanging on her, despite Castle holding Wyatt in his arms. She looked defeated, and he hated that, he did, but this was more important. For the time being.

"We'll do it late tomorrow," Carrie said. "Give Kate another day of normal routines, and we'll take regular checks for twenty-four hours. Record vital stats, BP, heart rate, lung capacity - I saw one of those portable inhalers here - that kind of thing. That way we have a baseline for post-infusion."

Castle nodded his headed, so damn grateful. "Thanks. That's perfect. That's good." He stepped into Kate to take the pressure off her neck from Wyatt's insistent pull. "Kate?"

She gave him a tortured look. "I hate-" 

But she didn't say it. He could tell it had been about to spill right out, that impassioned frustration, that grief at such a choice, but she hadn't said it. She was gritting her teeth and flashing a look that could kill, but she was too much in control of every word she said to let something slip.

Apparently sex made her loose-lipped.

"I know you hate it," he said carefully. Me. "For this. But we need something; we have to do something to wean you off this stuff. You cannot keep going like you are."

She already knew that. He knew she already knew that.

"Kate?" Carrie spoke up. "If you come with me, we'll get started right now on baselines."

Kate turned her face into Wyatt. Seeking what, Castle could only guess - comfort, forgiveness, or just a moment. A second to delay the inevitable.

And then her head came up, her eyes seeking out his own. "Take those scans. Take everything. He doesn't keep any of it."

"No, baby, not a thing." He carefully untangled Wyatt from her neck, an excuse to stand close to her, watch her, and then he set the boy on his feet. He did the same to James, making them both stand up on their own. "Hold Mommy's hand. You guys go with Mommy, help her be brave." He ducked each head with a ruffle of their hair, and straightened up. "I'll take care of this."

Carrie led Kate and the boys back outside, and now it was just Castle, Alex, and Eastman. Two against one.

"The files," Castle said calmly. Feigning it. He felt churned up, a ragged mess, unsure of the future but certain that they had to get Kate to that future. "Files, Alex."

"Now that she's gone, you and me, brother. Let's talk about this. You clearly see the writing on the wall. Let me have the files, let me study them - you gave me the master file, the key - with this, I can actually gain headway. I could-"

"No," Eastman said, and shot Castle a withering look. "Her wishes. No." And before Castle could defend himself or his silence, Eastman had snatched the scans right off the counter.

Alex tried for them, but Castle blocked his move, roughly shoving his brother back. "When Anne gets here, we'll go to the vault and we'll stock up. For you. And then the two of you are going to hunker down and ride it out in that rich and expensive apartment that Kate's blood and grief and body paid for. Do you understand? Your life depends on you keeping your fucking head down and riding it out."

"You can't do that," Alex growled, again doing the impulsive thing and jerking forward. Castle jabbed an elbow into the pressure point below his clavicle and Alex recoiled, wincing. 

"I can do that. We're doing it," Castle answered. "Kate is the one keeping you alive, you know. She thinks wholesale slaughter is off the table. So you and Anne lay low, you shut down the cash flow - take it all or fucking give it back, I don't care how or why. But the program is finished."

"You can't do that to me. To Ben. Ben needs that-"

"Ben will get what he needs. You work on your thing, the two of you, just like you were before. I'm not saying you can't experiment the shit out of each other. But I am saying you're not using my sons, you're not using Kate a second longer."

And then he walked out the door to find his Kate.

\-----

He found her sitting in the lobby with her head in her hands, deep breaths, leaning over her knees. James was clinging to one pant leg while Wyatt was at the other, and Carrie was nowhere in sight.

Castle approached carefully, being sure he made enough noise so she would know he was coming, and then he sank down before her. “Hey, honey.” 

Wyatt tumbled into him, a fist in Kate’s pant leg and now leaning against Castle’s shoulder. “Mommy,” the boy told him, nodding as if that said everything.

Maybe it did.

“Yeah, I know,” Castle said, turning his head to kiss the top of Wyatt’s. “I made Mommy mad. But I think she’ll forgive me.”

Kate’s head came up, a flash of fire in her eyes that made him grimace.

“Well, eventually,” he modified.

She glared.

“Okay, so this will be one of those things where we’ll look back and laugh?”

She didn’t look like she’d ever be laughing about this. But he thought - maybe - she appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood. If Carrie had already taken her vitals, it was possible the boys hadn’t been enough to keep Kate from edging towards panic.

He settled a hand on her knee, wrapping his other arm around Wyatt. James had both arms around her calf, sitting on her sandaled foot, his cheek against her leg. He was quiet, but he was always quiet.

“Okay, Kate,” he said, keeping his voice low but not yet going for serious. “Boys are half mine, right? There are two of them, so that gives me two halves - which is one whole boy at least. Want me to pick one and the other can be yours?”

Her jaw worked, that darkness in her eyes. She wasn’t in the mood for funny, he saw that clearly. But she answered him with a short, “What?”

“Wyatt would let me stick him, no problem. So he’s my two halves-”

“Don’t be a fucking asshole,” she grated.

He shut up.

She sat back in the chair with her hands over her face, growling, her shoulders hunched. 

Yeah. Not in the mood for humor.

“Mommy,” Wyatt called. “Mommy - me.”

“I see you, Wyatt,” she said, lying through her hands.

“She feels you at least,” Castle whispered against the boy’s temple. He kissed his forehead as Wyatt leaned into him, shifted to sit down all the way on the floor. He drew Wyatt in his lap, trying to think of a new approach.

“Kate-”

“Can’t you just shut up?” She dropped her hands to glare at him, though she had not a little desperation in her face.

“No,” he said, a little sigh. “No, honey, I can’t. Because you need to talk to me. We’re not having a repeat of yesterday.”

“I’m not suicidal,” she ground out.

“I’m completely in agreement with you,” he said, nodding. “Too much fight in you for that. Fight all the damn time. You never lay down.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“Yeah,” he said, the corner of his lips turning up. “But it makes you talk.”

“It makes me nuts.”

“I’ll take that too. Take anything you offer.”

She leaned forward and reached down for James, but Castle blocked her, gentled his move by taking her wrists in his hands and kissing her pulse where it beat so hard.

“I love you, and I want you side by side with me for - as long as you’ll have me, Kate. But most importantly, you deserve to be here and see your sons grow up, make lives for themselves, have families of their own if they want, be successful in their chosen endeavor.”

She sucked in a breath, stared at him.

“But that means living to see tomorrow. Living. That means some tradeoffs now, here, today, so that you have tomorrow.”

She set her jaw, still mutinous he could see but he hoped it was working on her. 

“I know that what was done to you, what was done to the boys - I know that still lives with you. I know it lives with them. You’re going to carry it. For - a while, I know. Maybe the rest of your life. I - it makes me sick. God. I...”

He shook his head and pressed both of her wrists to his lips, closing his eyes a moment, breathing. She still said nothing.

He lifted his head again. “And I know that what I’m asking you to do feels very similar to what has been done to them already. And to you. That makes this harder on you, and I never intended to do that to you, I never wanted... but I will make you. Kate. Do you understand? If you... can’t save yourself, honey, I will.”

Her fingers curled in at her palms. Not fists. But. Something.

She chewed on her bottom lip, but it wasn’t hesitance, wasn’t confusion. No. She was frustrated, and she was trying to find the words, and he felt it. Felt it surging through him from her. Frustration but also that hopelessness that rose up like a bitter wash, a taste in his mouth.

Her voice was rough when she spoke. “What did I do any of this for if only to put them right back in it?” 

He bowed his head to respect that, to give honor to that question, because he knew how difficult it had been for her to speak it out loud. The things she’d done. And now right back here.

“Does it mean nothing that it’s me doing it?” Castle asked her in return. “Does it not mean anything at all that I love them, and I love you, and I’m trying to take care of my family?”

She dragged in a ragged breath, but she didn’t look at him. “Road to hell is paved with good intentions,” she said finally.

“Alright,” he answered, feeling that. Even with Wyatt leaning into his side. “Good intentions. Yes. Guess the ends don’t justify the means, do they? I do see that.”

She put her elbow on her thighs and rubbed her thumbs into the ridges of her eyebrows. “There is a right and a wrong, Castle. Right and wrong. And using the boys as a pin cushion just to experiment with-”

“Okay, well, first of all. It’s not experimenting. Not like that.” He palmed the side of her knee to gain her attention. “When Colin was about twelve, he had infusions for a year. There was some talk about it being hormone-related, that basically being a teenager whacked out his blood chemistry. So the infusions are a known procedure. Not a cure-all, no, but they were a blood therapy that worked for Colin.”

She lifted her head, her chin coming against her fists, concentrating on him.

He nodded, continued. “Okay, and when Alex suggested the infusions, it wasn’t as offhand as it seemed. I get that it looked - but we’d already talked about it before. Colin was the one who brought it up, his idea, and we ran through some projections, the two of us, yesterday before the zoo.”

“Why do you hide things from me?” she scowled.

“Oh.” He blinked. “I - don’t know. I didn’t mean to. I don’t think about it. I’m used to puzzle pieces, pieces of information, used to - working as a unit. The squad leader has the entire picture, and the rest of the men get their jobs to do and they do them. And it fits together.”

“I’m not on your squad.”

“No, I know.”

“I mean-” She stuttered and rubbed a hand at her forehead. “I promised - ride or die. I did. I meant it. But I need... more. I need to know things. You can’t keep me in the dark; I can’t - be in the dark anymore, Castle. I can’t. It all feels too out of my control-”

“Okay,” he said quickly. “I’ll change that. I’ll stop doling out information. You’re right. I accused you of not talking about it, but you’re only following my lead.”

She pressed her lips together, furrowed brow. With his fingers around her wrists, he could feel her trembling a little.

“Kate?”

She met his eyes.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “I love you, and I’m going to work on it, I promise. Communication. Does it help to know that the infusion is a therapy we’ve used often?”

“No.”

He gave a little grunt of laughter, not amused really but - maybe a little. He couldn’t help but feel so damn relieved, and it kept bubbling up in him. She was here, she was talking to him, she wasn’t going to need to take herself out of the equation because she didn’t have holes in her brain.

“Hey, baby?” he murmured. “You’re forgetting the best news of the day.”

“What is that,” she said, her voice tight.

“Your brain looks pretty damn sexy.”

Her head came up, mouth opening, surprise coloring her cheeks. “What?”

“Good scan, baby. Healthy gray matter, neurons in working order. Beautiful.”

She flushed deeply and sat up a little straighter, and Castle shifted Wyatt to put the boy’s feet on the floor, reached for Kate.

He palmed her thighs and came up on his knees to be even with her face. She was pink and flush and a little breathless with a combination of anger and grief and maybe - if he was lucky - maybe a little pleasure. 

“I know you’re not happy with me right now,” he murmured, lifting his hands to cup her face. “But I take my promises very seriously, sweetheart, and I promised I would fight for you. I am fighting for you.”

\-----

They had claimed a couch in the waiting room, and some space, mentally and physically, from everyone else. Carrie had told her she would leave her alone while she started working on a medical chart for Kate on the laptop, and Mark must be back in that room with her, and there was Colin and Ben somewhere too, and Alex, but-

Castle's arm squeezed around her shoulders, hard enough to jostle her out of that spiral.

His lips touched her forehead. 

James was on the floor with Wyatt, the two boys working studiously together to build a tower. Or almost together. Working at the same time on a project that might be considered one building. Maybe.

"Mommy," Wyatt called up to her.

She had her legs pulled onto the sofa, her cheek to Castle's chest - though he hadn't given her much room to do differently. "Yeah, baby, I see you."

"Me." He grunted and studied his blocks and then he watched James attempt the same pattern to his own portion of the structure.

"What are you making, Wyatt?"

The boy swiveled his head in surprise, as if he'd forgotten she was there, or maybe no one had ever asked him that before.

"Mommy," he started, frustration pouring over his features.

"A tower," she told him. "With blocks."

"Box," he hummed.

"Blocks, yes. Is James helping you with your blocks?"

"A?" Wyatt's little head turned to look at his brother, some of that same surprise. James lifted his head and then a block, handed it to Wyatt who took it with sober reflection. "A."

"I." James replied.

Castle let out a strange noise and sat up a little, bringing her with him, her neck at an odd angle because of his surge upright. "God, they're - naming each other. Calling each other."

"What?" she said. "How do you-"

"James," Castled said to the boy, shifting now to put his elbows on his knees. Kate adjusted, leaning now against his side, her knees pulled up. Castle gestured for James. "James, tell me his name. Who is this?"

He put his hand on Wyatt's head and the boy grinned, flushing with pride at Castle's touch. James looked at Castle, then at his brother, and clearly said, "I."

"Wy?" Castle questioned. "Is that what you're saying?"

James flushed too, but his eyes slid to Kate as if to ask for permission. He didn't like being the center of attention any more than she did. 

Kate opened her arms and James came running to her, clinging to the couch and her shirt, trying to climb up. "It's okay, honey," she whispered against his neck, dragging him into her lap. "Tell Daddy what you said."

"Wy," he whispered, squirming down into her. "Mommy."

Her heart flipped. "Yeah, you're so smart, baby. That's Wyatt. And what does he call you?"

"A."

It felt like panic, and how weird was that? Her rush of feeling when it came to what they could do - it went through her so hard and so fast it was like panic. "Yes, sweetheart, he calls you James, doesn't he? So smart, you boys are so smart."

She looked over at Castle, who had curled his arm around Wyatt, bringing the boy in against his knee. Castle's face was just as thunderstruck as her own, had to be, because they shared a look and he shook his head.

"It's - amazing. And Carrie was telling me that babies their age are still doing what she called parallel play. They will play side by side at the same thing but not together. Only James and Wyatt play together. And did you notice how James was copying Wyatt? Block for block, and Wyatt would turn and make sure his brother was following him, help him if he needed it." Castle drew Wyatt up into his lap and sat back on the couch, grinning like an idiot. "Like Wyatt is the one who is good at fine motor skills, and building a tower - that requires hand-eye coordination, all these things that Wyatt has developed but James hasn't, and they do it together to help each other. I saw James holding Wyatt's hand in the bathroom when they had to step over the edge of the stall-"

"Okay, okay," she interrupted, clutching James. Her heart was still beating too hard and Castle was just so eager. So eager and it was - too much. "Okay, they... yes. They're different. They've been-"

"No, no, no," he rushed in. "Not that they're weird, but that they're - just - they're my sons. And they're so smart and good to each other and they love their mother and protect her and they're calling each other by their names, names you gave them in secret, I know, I know, but it's amazing. It's amazing that they're here."

Damn. Now she was crying. 

"Ah, shit," he whispered.

James twisted in her arms and wound himself around her neck, and Castle drew her back against him and pressed his lips to her forehead, and she just cried.

Probably had been a long time coming, if she was honest with herself. 

"Okay, honey," he murmured. "You can cry. I might cry too. It's amazing isn't it? They're such good boys. They're just - miraculous. I get caught up in it."

"Mommy," James whispered. 

"I'm okay," she told him, them, all of them. "Just shaky." His fingers were digging into her shoulder and now her neck, gripping her tightly. "Just a little shaky."

Wyatt peered at her and she made a face at him, unable to hide with the way Castle kept her tight to his chest, his hand at her neck. 

"Give Mommy a hug," Castle told Wyatt, nudging him. 

All it took. She had a body being flung at her, a little squirming body with hard knees, and she had to catch him with no arms left to catch him.

"Uggg, Mommy," Wyatt squealed in her ear. He was stepping on James, trying to press himself closer to her than his brother was. "Mommy, me."

"Share, son," Castle said. "Three of us, one of Mommy. Share her."

She tried to untangle her arm from Castle but he wasn't letting her go, and her arm around James couldn't be moved or he would fall (he was doing that on purpose she thought, to keep her), and she had to settle for kissing Wyatt's cheeks and letting him hang on her.

"Guess I need three arms too, huh?" She knocked her cheek into Wyatt's and he squirmed in pleasure, but she gave Castle a look. "Used to be two was enough. Now, apparently, I've got a third."

His face gave away absolutely nothing. "Yes."

She rolled her eyes at him, still pressed into his side, still kept, so that Wyatt was sandwiched between them with James on her thigh. "I'm not happy with this," she told him. "I don't like using them. It's wrong to use them."

"It's not wrong. Not to me. Not to them. Look at us."

And she did. She really looked. She had somehow gotten crushed in the middle of a dogpile of bodies, the four of them tangled like animals seeking heat, squirming boys and all, and she was the one they all wanted to touch.

"They're amazing, Kate. I know you see that. Calling each other by name, helping each other out, starving themselves just to get back to you. They were how old and they went on a hunger strike? You can't tell me there aren't connections between the three of you that go beyond mother and child, deeper, stronger, more intricately wound connections. Wyatt's brain - we don't know what that is or why you have that same region of activity. I'm not sure what happens to them if that connection to you is severed. I don't know what happens to them, Kate."

She frowned, but he was working on her. That damn connection. It was doing something to her.

"I know what happens to me," he said. His voice was tight. "I felt that - saw it - last night. I know how bad-"

"I'm sorry," she whispered, instinct, knee-jerk, to the grief on his face, to what she'd done to him last night.

"Just... let us help you," he answered. "Please. Let us do what we can, what's in our power to do. What I can give you is so damn little, that any single thing - anything - just - we want you. We want you and we'll give you whatever you need."

"You don't owe me - they don't owe me-"

"It's not payment," he growled. "This isn't a payment. It's love. It's how love works, Kate. Youtaught me that."

"I don't want to use them-"

"It's not using them if it's given freely."

She growled and elbowed him in the ribs, trying to get it out, what had to be said, what kept overwhelming her. "They're not old enough to consent, Castle. If we had sixteen years or so-"

"They're not? How about we test that theory, because these are some amazingly smart kids. Hey. Wyatt, hey, buddy, look at me. Yeah, hi."

"Hi, Daddy."

"Where's Mommy?"

Wyatt pitched back into her chest, craned his neck to look up at her. "Hi, Mommy."

She couldn't help the way it flickered through her, laughter. "Hi, baby."

"Wyatt, you love Mommy?"

"Mommy."

"Do you love her? Because she loves you. A whole lot. And I love you. I bet you love-"

"Mommy!" Wyatt beamed in triumph, so pleased with himself. 

"Would you let Mommy have some of your blood?" Castle asked, touching Wyatt's knee and tracing a line at the inside of his thigh - where a vein showed. "A needle in your thigh, right here." He used his fingernail and Kate stiffened, but Wyatt only furrowed his brow. "It will hurt for a second, like that, and then the blood will go in a tube for Mommy."

"Mommy?"

"For Mommy," Castle repeated softly. "Is that okay?"

Wyatt squirmed happily between them, ducking his chin down to his chest. "Esss."

"Damn," she sighed.

"Good boy," Castle praised, leaning in and kissing his forehead. 

"That doesn't count. He can't possibly understand-"

"Mommy, you!"

"He understands enough," Castle shot back. "James, what about you? Would you be okay with-"

"My mommy. My mommy," James mumbled against her, and then his little lips were at her neck, like a kiss, a soft and strange little kiss that went all through her, made her shiver. Not just because of the kiss, but because of the knowing behind it. "O-tay, Mommy."

God.

"I felt that," Castle whispered.

She tried to breathe.

"Holy shit, I felt that," Castle husked. "You can't tell me he doesn't understand something of what's going on here. He - shit. That was - wow. James."

"Me," James simply said.

\-----

At the last minute, Kate whispered, "I don't want to do this."

Castle crashed to a halt, partially because Wyatt had dug his heels in and stopped in the middle of the hallway, but also because of the way she looked, thin and angular and defeated as she headed into the room.

"It will be over fast," Carrie told her with a cheerful smile. She reached out and hugged Kate - tried to anyway - but Kate shied away, tripping backwards over Wyatt and into Castle.

Wyatt landed on his diaper, but Castle managed to catch Kate. She grunted and shrugged him off, moving away from him, even as she crouched down to pick Wyatt up off his bottom. The boy whined in her arms and cupped her face in his hands, directing her to look at him. 

"Box, Mommy. Box."

"You can go back to your blocks after this. Gotta help Mommy be brave," Castle said, leaning in past her shoulder to kiss Wyatt's cheek. Apparently - wrong move - because her shoulder went up in defense and jarred his chin, making him bite his tongue. 

But he didn't pull back; he didn't even flicker. He just smiled and laid her hand at her back, straightened up to take James by the wrist. Took more than that to put him off. 

"You ready, Kate?" Carrie had the door open, the room was rearranged to make it look less like an exam room. It might have been the doctor's lounge at one point, because there were chairs around a table, a couch, an empty counter that now held a few machines. "Sit at the table with me?"

Kate put Wyatt on his feet and then she sank down to an empty chair and slumped there, elbows on the table, her posture so unlike her that it made Castle wary. The flinching, the jerking away from him - warning signs he had to heed. 

"James," he murmured, crouching over the boy and talking softly. "Go sit with Mommy."

James squirmed out of his hold and ran to Kate, throwing himself into her knees. She startled, but she reached down and automatically pulled him into her lap, sitting up straighter herself. Better. That was better.

Castle rounded up Wyatt and sat him in his own chair, and it worked. The boy liked to think he was being an adult, a big kid, just like them. He flushed with pleasure and pushed his head back into the seat, gripping the sides with his hands and surveying the room. 

"Mommy, me."

She turned her head to look at him, but there was - a lack? A difference. Some kind of difference. She blinked, regarded him thoughtfully, seemed to come back. "I see you, Wyatt. You in a chair?"

"Air," he tried, looking so pleased when she smiled.

"That's right. Chair."

"Wow," Carrie said, mouth dropping. "It's like they hit these - surges of learning. I've never been up close and personal with kids before, but I'm pretty sure they're smarter than average." She sank down to the nearest chair and leaned in to ruffled Wyatt's hair. "Aren't you smart, Wyatt?"

"Ess!"

They all laughed, and if Kate's laughter was quieter and fell off sooner, Castle could understand why. At least she was laughing.

“You could have something there,” Castle said, trying to keep up the conversation. Keep Kate distracted. “Maybe that’s how it works for them. I think it’s pretty clear that being in such constant view of Kate is a big factor.”

Carrie gave him a funny look, as if he was trying too hard, but she nodded and smiled, went along with it. She was pulling apart a package with both hands. “You might be right. They light up when she enters the room. Don’t you, boys?”

“Mommy,” Wyatt said from Castle’s arms. He wriggled around and looked up at Castle, patting Castle’s collarbone. “Mine?”

“Yeah, she’s yours,” Castle said, frowning down at him. Carrie had opened the sterile package and the needle was a lot longer than he’d been expecting. “That’s not really in question is it?”

“His bunny,” Kate said faintly.

He lifted his head and saw her close her eyes, shake her head a little. He glanced to Carrie, nodding at Kate, and she nodded back, putting together the needle with the capsule that would draw up the blood. She was waiting.

“His bunny. Hey, kid, is that what you’re asking for?” He jostled Wyatt a little, but his gaze was on Kate. Waiting. 

“Nee?” Wyatt tried. James was quiet in Kate’s arms, but not perturbed. Castle didn’t know what that meant, and Wyatt was patting his chest again for attention. “Nee?”

“Bun-ny,” Castle pronounced. “Close enough. I think knee is back in the other room. Kate, you remember where we left it?”

Her eyes were slow to open, but when they did-

“Kate,” he said quietly. 

A flicker. Recognition. And then a strange sigh. “On the floor. In there. Yeah.”

He exchanged a glance with Carrie and she shrugged. 

Castle reached out and laid his hand on the table beside her, lifted his fingers to stroke the back of her elbow. “Kate, honey, Carrie is going to draw your blood. Left arm, sweetheart.” 

“Can you put your arm on the table for me, Kate?”

She did, but it was - strange. Not that she wasn’t there; she was here, she was responding, she was looking at Carrie. But it wasn’t right. And Castle realized it was more a feeling he had rather than a look on her face.

But James was fine. James was just leaning back against her chest, yawning a little, but-

He had, before, shut down when his mother had overwhelmed things. He had shut down and been of zero help to Castle in all this.

Might be now.

“Kate, I’m going to tie this rubber tube around the top of your arm,” Carrie persisted, leaning forward now with the yellow tube. Kate consented even to that, but it was the lack - the emptiness that persisted when Castle tried to-

What exactly was he trying to do? What was the lack? Something, something, but it was all so new to him that he couldn’t figure out what was wrong, only that it felt off. She felt off.

“Carrie,” he said sharply.

Kate did jerk at that, startled, and her eyes came to his.

“Carrie, I’ll do it,” he said. He’d drawn blood before. He was uncoordinated with the catheters that drew blood, but he could do this. “Switch places with me.”

She frowned but she stood up. Castle came around and took her seat, handing her Wyatt despite the flicker that went across Kate’s face at having Wyatt passed off. There wasn’t much Castle could do about that, and having Wyatt in his lap while he tried to draw blood wasn’t going to work.

He finished tying the tube and squeezed her bicep, feeling her pulse. Slow. Not exactly steady, but not racing.

“Alright, feels weird, right? Now for the stress ball.” He laid the squishy red ball in her palm and closed her fingers around it. “Squeeze, baby. Like you do to me.”

And there she was, brought back to him with a violence only in the head. Outwardly she barely moved, but she’d been wrenched back to him, like whiplash. She was wincing when she looked at him, Carrie’s chuckles soft in the room.

James gave a little gasp and then he laughed - like an old man - and Kate’s eyes dragged down to him, lips actually quirking. “You thought that was funny, huh?”

“I sure did,” Castle told her. He squeezed his hand around hers on the ball and she did it, started flexing her arm to get her blood pressure up.

“You said that on purpose,” Kate muttered, using her other hand now to comb through Wyatt’s hair. It was curling on his neck a little.

“Yeah, sure did. It worked too.”

She frowned and glanced to Carrie and back to him. “You switched places.”

Damn. Really? “Yeah, baby, we did. Figured this time, I get the honors. Since she had to stick you for the glucose test.”

“Oh.”

Fuck, he could see her going even now. Already. Sliding right out of her own head, her eyes beginning to go vacant.

“Okay, Kate, I’m going to swab it with alcohol and then put the needle in.” And hope her vein wouldn’t roll, skinny and underweight as she was.

“Okay,” she echoed.

He opened the alcohol pad and pulled it out, held it out for her. The scent was strong, and her head jerked back when it hit her nose. Castle gripped the back of her elbow to keep her and the shiver went through her body that warned him.

“Kate,” he said quietly. “You have James in your lap. Wyatt is right beside you.”

She sucked in a ragged breath. “I know.”

“You can’t check out,” he warned her.

“You won’t let me,” she said tightly. Eyes shuttered.

“I won’t let you hurt them,” he promised.

Her breath rushed out, came back in again. Her fingers clutched at the squeeze ball.

He swiped her elbow with one movement, letting his thumb drag hard into the crook of her elbow, pushing up her vein. And while she was still not expecting it, he brought the ready needle to her skin and pierced her vein without pausing.

Kate shivered and closed her eyes, head bowing forward.

“Do I need to do something?” Carrie murmured.

“No, no,” Castle said quickly. “No. Please. Don’t touch her. Don’t - move too suddenly.”

Carrie’s jaw dropped, questions in her eyes.

“I don’t know,” he said, not answering. “Kate? Here we go, sweetheart. Keep pumping the ball. Strong grip, baby.”

She wasn’t though. Her head bowed forward, lips blanched because she was pressing them so hard together.

“Carrie. Take Wyatt.”

“What?” Carrie gaped at him. “You’re not serious? What about James?”

“Can’t take him away from her,” he said shortly. “Much worse. Take Wyatt and get his bunny.”

Kate’s eyes opened and her head turned, lashes thick and not quite separating. “Show Carrie your bunny,” she murmured. And then she unwound her arm from James and touched Wyatt’s knee, fingers tapping. “Knee.”

“Nee,” Wyatt said purposefully. He turned and patted Carrie just like he’d done to Castle. “Nee. Mine.”

“Alright, that’s - I guess so. Let’s go find your knee, sweetie.” Carrie stood slowly, like Castle had warned her and moved for the door.

He didn’t really think it would get that far, but he wanted privacy for what he said to her, to Kate, for the way he was going to have to speak to keep her here.

“James,” she murmured.

“James is fine,” he told her. “You’re fine. Just getting some blood drawn so we can do a wider range of baseline tests, and so we can be sure that what we put in your body won’t have a bad reaction. James is fine.”

“You sent Wyatt-”

“Only because I didn’t want Carrie to have to hear this.”

With effort she looked at him, her other arm tightening around James. Se looked like she was bracing herself. “Hear... what?”

“Hear me talking about how hot it is to watch you squeeze that ball. I put the image in my own damn head, I know I did, but fuck, Kate Beckett, I can’t help but picture it.”

She gave a startled noise but her eyes tracked to his, caught and held there. “Like this?”

He grunted for effect, but there was something about the way she was looking at him now that did it for him. Wounded woodland creature. “What I’d really like to do,” he said slowly, keeping her eyes on him. “Really really like to do-”

“Is what?”

He grinned. “Sit in front of the mirror with you, watch ourselves get each other off. Your hands on me, just like that, squeezing-”

She was definitely with him now, and the capsule was almost halfway - and filling rapidly.

\-----


	6. Chapter 6

She watched him remove the vial and cap it, and then he moved in and pressed gauze to her elbow and the needle was gone too.

“Can you always do it?” she croaked.

He didn’t look at her like some pitiful thing. He lifted his eyes in acknowledgment and nodded. “I can.”

She let out a breath and nodded back, but she was shaky everywhere. Her feet hurt and she realized she had cramped her toes by hooking her feet on the rung the whole time. About forty minutes, with Castle telling her patiently, squeeze the ball, reminding her of what she had to do to keep the blood flowing.

The dirty talk had worked until it hadn’t worked and then it had just been his hand on her back and his voice in her ear, words without meaning sliding through her, no sense. No sense, and she’d been stuck hunched over on the table with her heart frozen in her chest and the blood not flowing and the more she panicked the less it seemed to flow, and he had kept calling her don’t leave, stay with me, don’t check out, but she hadn’t known how not to.

He had a band-aid on her arm now and his fingers caressing, not at all professional, and that helped a lot, and then he was tugging on her knee for her attention and she realized she had been gone somewhere, for how long, any of it how long, where had she been while staring at a band-aid with Mickey Mouse all over it.

“Can I always hug you after I do it?”

She didn’t understand.

He wrapped his fingers behind her elbow and tugged, and she wasn’t ready and she kicked instinctively, but he caught her ankle and had her by the back of the neck and she cringed. She cringed and froze but his thumb caressed her ankle bone and ran up her jeans and his other hand angled her head as he would a wild animal about to bite, except when Castle had done it, when he did it now, it triggered a hot gush of arousal between her legs and her body canted into his.

He always did that before he kissed her, before he touched her, and she wanted, wanted wanted-

“I asked nicely, now I’m going to make you.” 

He pulled her right out of the chair and into his lap, her ass knocking against his knee hard enough to jar her teeth. She was off-balanced by the move, and he was releasing his hold on her neck, and she tipped backwards-

But then his arms wrapped around her and crushed her to his chest.

Crushed her out.

She couldn’t relax, she was still rigid, but everything had a place now. She had a line to form against, to orient herself to. She had the solid mass of him as structure and guidewire, and she could lean in, isometric.

He was petting her hair. She wanted him to stroke her - down. Other places, take her teeth off the edge. Relax her jaw.

She caught his hand at the back of her head and brought his arm into her chest, hugged the wide and firm trunk of his limb between her breasts.

And then she angled his hand down to where her legs were pulled up in the chair, where her ass was pitched between his thighs, and she pressed his curled fingers to the heat that burned there.

Castle growled.

She rocked her hips up into him, pressed his digits where her own fingers pressed, overlaying his hand with her own force.

And then he began providing it.

One arm wrapped around her upper shoulders and drew her against his back, and the other angled painfully into her abs and down between her legs. His hand gripped her there, massaged her like he did her breasts, kneading and rubbing her over her jeans. She rolled up into his restraint, hips frantic now, wanting fingers and flesh, harder, penetration.

He popped open the button of her jeans and worked on the zipper. She worked on keeping still long enough to let him, and then he was hissing her name and plunging his fingers into her panties.

“Oh, yes,” she cried out, arching.

He was two rough passes over her clit and a finger sunk inside her up to his knuckle, and she was climaxing with a choked noise of suppression, shaking and trembling on his lap.

And now he petted her there, stroked her down, now his fingers rubbed and eased her off the edge.

\-----

She was so damn wet, so fucking wet, but only after he’d forced an orgasm out of her. When she had pushed his hand down, and he had worked his way under her panties, mostly she had been panic-dry. But it had only taken a moment.

He really loved the slick heat of her, and his fingers explored while she caught her breath. “Kate?”

She didn’t answer with a word, but her hips made a sharp push into his hand. He grinned into the top of her head and slipped through her folds, stroking along the sides of her clit, feeling her.

“Good?” he murmured.

She nodded, her face turning into his neck. Her lips touched his jaw lightly, and he nudged down to claim a kiss. The stroke of her tongue made him growl, and his fingers hooked, pushed inside her again. She gasped and arched, and he knew one more, he could get another one out of her - he really ought to, actually.

“G-good,” she husked. Her mouth opened and her tongue darted out, a lick at his bottom lip, her eyes hooded. She looked - outside herself. Or the most herself. 

That was it. The most herself. Here now. With him.

He rubbed her folds and dipped back inside her, hitting the ridge of her front wall, watching her reaction. She groaned and dipped her forehead into his jaw, her hips jumping. 

He worked his fingers inside her, pressing against the hot clench of her muscles, loving the way it felt like she encompassed him. How his cock felt when he pushed inside her, how damn good it felt to be surrounded.

“I want you,” she said. “Want you.”

Fuck, yes.

First thought, and he was ashamed of the intensity of his need when she had just been so far out of it she hadn’t noticed him taking James by the hand and leading him to the door for Carrie to take away. She hadn’t even noticed. 

And now he wanted to be buried inside her.

“Castle,” she husked. “Undo this.” 

He grunted when her body twisted in his lap, his fingers jostled from her heat. She moaned and worked at his pants, frantic scrapes of her nails - fuck, her nails at the material of his pants.

His fingers flexed in reaction, sliding through the heat of her.

“I can’t - oh, God - yes - there, need you there-”

He couldn’t manage to restrain himself. He had meant to. Messy, it would be messy even if he came inside her, messy for her and he meant to be good to her-

“There, there,” she gasped. “Yes. I want you.”

He lost his grip on her as she turned in his lap, throwing a leg over his hip and rubbing herself against his thigh, his fingers trapped. 

She paused only long enough to twist, yanking her jeans off, ripping them down her legs. He was using his free hand to pull down his zipper, unwilling to tell her no, to tell himself no either, and she was back at his thigh, rocking hard. Want you, want you, please.

“You want me or you want my thigh?” he growled.

“Want whatever you’ll give me,” she whispered. Her lips caressed his ear and then her teeth caught him, making him gasp.

“I’ll give it to you, fucking hell I will,” he snarled, dragging her in line with him. His cock was throbbing and she’d barely touched him. It was just touching her that did it to him.

She laughed softly and her fingers came around his cock, stroking. “Mm, impressive.”

“Just for you.”

“All for me,” she whispered, and then her body sank down over the head of his cock.

“Ah, fuck,” he groaned, bowing forward into her. Their noses collided. Her mouth painted a wet line down his cheek. Her sex swallowed him slowly, the heat of her opened up by him. “Ah, fuck, fuck. Baby, you feel so good. Tight. Ah, fuck, so tight.”

“I love how you talk to me,” she whispered.

He grunted, his cock pressing into her, how damn slowly she took him in, though he couldn’t tell if she was doing it on purpose or not. “Love being inside you,” he croaked. His breath came hot out of his lungs, his harsh panting causing her hair to flutter off her neck. “Love the feeling of you around me.”

“Harder, Castle-” She cut off, whining, her hips twisting so that he saw stars behind his eyes. “Need more, more-”

“You need to work with me, I’m limited like this - move with me, sweetheart.”

“Move how? Tell me how, how, I’ll do anything-”

His heart clenched and he gripped her hips, tugged. She gasped and jerked into him, groaning when his cock speared upward into her sex. “Now, lift - lift up, baby. Use your knees in the seat and ride my cock.”

“Oh, God,” she groaned. Her hips worked down, but she got her knees in the seat, pushed off against the chair. “Oh, yes, oh, that’s - amazing.”

“Fuck,” he hissed. The way she moved, jerkily moved, up and now back down again, slamming hard in her eagerness. He met her with the short thrust of his hips he could manage like this, but she was already dragging back off him, her body tense and rigid around him.

“Feels - feels good.” She trembled and cupped his face, her head tilting forward so that she was staring right down into his eyes. “You feel so good.”

His heart flipped, his hips jumping at the love in her voice. She groaned, her lashes fluttering; she was so close. He could get her there. He could get her there, he knew he could, just a little more, he had to hang on a little longer.

Her eyes opened, mouth wide, and her muscles fluttered around him. Fluttered like a million mouths around him. 

“Oh, God,” she moaned, clutching his face between her hands.

He lifted his head up to hers, pressed his mouth against her lips. The sound of her as she began to orgasm, the feel of her, the press of body to body.

He loosened his grip on her hips and instead wrapped his arms around her, drew her chest to his and thrust.

She cried out sharply and came apart around his cock. He let himself go, releasing the terrible edge of his tension into the harbor of her body, crushing her against him as his climax shorted out his control.

\-----

“Isn’t your sperm super?” she mumbled against his neck. He twitched and then laughed, a shock to it that she found strangely delicious. She had shocked him. 

“My sperm?” he rumbled. His arms loosened around her back but only, it seemed, so he could cup her skull and kiss the side of her face. “Super?”

She let her hips rock a little, where he was still inside her. His cock never went flaccid like the boys in high school’s had. Not flaccid at all. Just resting. “Super, augmented, special. Whatever. Elixir-enhanced?”  
He chuckled again, that vibration of sound in his chest that transferred through her skin. “I supposed that’s true. Shooting complete blanks, but it must be - ah- super, despite the lack of sex chromosomes.”

“Then why can’t I just have regular infusions of that?”

This time he laughed, and hard, and it jostled his cock - which wasn’t hard exactly, but it wasn’t soft at all - and it sent off lovely ripples inside her. She tightened her knees at his hips and her arms around his shoulders, rocked a little more to chase that sensation.

“If I thought it would help, sweetheart, I’d be offering my services.”

“You’re not offering?”

“Damn. Got me there. I’m pretty much doing more than offering, love, aren’t I?”

“Are you?” she whispered, touched. More than touched, though her heart felt more like a stone than anything. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I am.” His arms around her tightened. “You know that, right? I’ll keep saying it, but you know.”

She didn’t say, didn’t know how to say, but she curled into him, fingers stroking his sides, the material of his shirt and the heat of his skin beneath it. 

“I wish it did work that way,” he mumbled. “I wish loving you fixed all our problems. Damn, I wish that so much.”

“Me too.”

His hand touched her nape and his lips came to hers, surprising her with how aggressive he was, how much he took from her. She moaned and opened for him, the stroke of his tongue. Her body contracted in response and she felt his cock inside her, the clutch of her sex around him. 

So good. Felt so good, this constant need, his demanding insistence. Her body’s instant response to him.

How transported he made her feel. And yet, alive.

He made her feel alive. 

Like living.

His mouth withdrew, a line of kisses down her throat. A softer kiss under her eye. A gentle touch of his hands at her jaw line. “Should clean up. They’re waiting on us.”

“Waiting on us?”

“For - the boys. To draw their blood, honey.”

“Where are the boys?” she whispered. To draw their blood. “I’d rather you fuck me instead.”

He laughed, but it broke off. His sigh was a little broken too. “I’d rather that too, but-”

“I know,” she murmured.

She didn’t want to go. She wanted to keep - him. Keep living.

“But I want you to have what you need,” he said softly. “I want you to live. I just want you to live.”

She closed her eyes, slumping into him.

“Please, will you-”

“I know,” she said. “I - know.” Time to do the hard things, time to do what she had to do. She pushed her hands to his shoulders and lifted up on her knees, groaning softly when he slid out of her. 

His hands came to her hips, steadied her. “Thank you.”

“So long as we can still try it my way,” she said, trying to tease him a little, trying to smile.

“Try it your way?”

She sank back to his knees, touched his cock where it laid against his thigh, the thick length of him coming out of his boxers. “This way.”

“I can do that,” he said, sounding grave. But when she lifted her eyes to meet his, he was smiling at her. A little smile. Hopeful.

“Good.” She eased him back inside his pants, trying to arrange him carefully. “Like this?”

“Show you,” he husked. His hands came to hers, directed her movements. He positioned himself inside his boxers, and she traced the length of him at his thigh before zipping up his pants.

“You look beautiful,” he murmured. His hands stroking her inside thighs. He caught her around the waist and leaned forward, picked her pants up off the floor to help her dress.

“So are you,” she told him, lifting her eyes to him. “You’re beautiful. So - beautiful. I don’t - can’t explain how you...”

She blinked and sighed, slid off his knees to push her feet into the legs of her pants.

Time to go.

\-----

They each held a boy, keeping them still to prevent them from tangling in the tubes or pulling out the lines. Carrie had been in the room with them at first, but she kept going in and out, and so long as Kate had a hand on both boys, they were content to stay.

Castle had James - at Wyatt's insistence on having his mother all to himself - but James didn't seem to mind. They had full bottles of juice and James had his rag doll in the crook of his arm. He seemed mildly hypnotized by the video on the laptop, but Castle was playing with the fingers of his hand that was taped to the board. 

Kate had been right. It looked wrong, his little hand and arm laced with surgical tape and gauze, confined to a blue styrofoam board. It just - looked wrong.

Castle traced an outline of James's hand against the board, his finger moving slowly around the top of the boy's knuckles where he had a loose fist. James stirred and leaned his head back against Castle's chest with a sigh.

Castle lifted his hand and cupped the boy's skull, kissed the top of James's head. He smelled like a little boy, like sunshine and sweat and cotton, and the soap they'd used at bath time. 

When he glanced over at Kate, she had fallen asleep with Wyatt in her arms - both faces turned his direction, Wyatt's arm out and cradled along Kate's to keep it immobile. Castle lifted his hand from James and reached across the chairs to touch Kate's shoulder, but she didn't stir, and neither did Wyatt.

"Mommy?" James murmured.

"She's asleep," Castle answered, lightly withdrawing his hand.

"My daddy."

He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, son, I'm yours."

"Mmm." James made a noise like he had more he wanted to say, but no words to say it. Castle resumed tracing the edges of his son's arm where it was covered in tape, trying to be purposeful about the moment, about remembering this, and what it felt like - good and bad - to have his son in his arms, and Kate beside him, and yet their world so precarious.

"What is it you want to say?" Castle asked him. "There's Mommy, and me, and your brother, Wyatt."

"I."

"Yeah."

"Me?"

"You're James," he said carefully. "Or well, I was talking about me, wasn't I? I'm Cas-" He chuckled and shook his head. "I'm Daddy. But your mommy call's me Castle."

"Sss."

"Close enough."

"Ate?"

"Damn, yeah. Kate. Mommy is Kate. Is that what you were saying? That's Mommy."

"My mommy."

"Yeah, buddy, she's yours."

James gave a satisfied noise but he tilted his head back on Castle's chest, looking up at him. "My daddy." He was trying to communicate something, Castle could tell, an intention behind his limited word choice.

"Yeah. I'm not sure what you're trying to say, kiddo. What about me?"

James let out a frustrated grump and thumped his head back against Castle. 

"Careful, my man. Harder than it looks," he said quietly, rubbing the top of James's skull. "Well, I'll tell you a few things about your daddy, how's that?"

James didn't offer any protest, still reclining in Castle's lap.

"I'm older than Mommy. But so are most people, so I guess that doesn't help you much. Huh. Well, I'm a CIA agent - that's my job - and I work over about thirty people. I'm a section chief here in New York, so that means usually as much time in the field as behind the desk."

James let out a dissatisfied noise.

"I agree. Boring as shit. But that will be good for you guys. Means I'll be here when you need me. Mostly. Damn. I - guess that will have to - we'll figure that out. I'll have to - take a sabbatical for now. And I won't be doing any offbook black ops for dear old dad, will I? Fucking bastard."

"Uck."

"Yeah. Exactly that. You said it, kiddo."

"Daddy?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"My daddy."

"You need more? Well, let's see. No kids before now, so you and Wyatt don't need to worry about being usurped. My only boys. And I'm single. Well. No, I guess not. I have Mommy - or well, she has me, so whatever that means. I guess if she wants... something else. I'm not sure how that would work, but I promise that you'd still have me, and Mommy would still have me. Even if I couldn't have her. Okay?"

"Tay," James said, sounding satisfied now.

Castle patted the boy's belly and settled back, but this time when he checked on Wyatt, Kate's eyes were open.

She was watching him.

"Kate?" he whispered.

She closed her eyes, but she untangled her hand from Wyatt and snaked it across the chairs. His came immediately to catch hers, and her grip was fierce, even though she said nothing.

He didn't need her to say it.

He really didn't.

\-----

She drifted off and on while the babies had their blood drawn. Not long, but Carrie wanted to do it gradually, over time, and so she kept coming back into the room to keep the blood from clotting. It was over before she knew it, but the sense of deep fatigue wouldn't leave her.

"I think it's them," she murmured to Castle. He looked concerned. She tried to rally but she was so damn tired. "I think it's - all of us together, probably."

"Let me take you home," he said softly, cupping the side of her face. He had James in his arm, the boy listless over his shoulder, but she hadn't managed to get out of the chair. Wyatt was drinking his juice in her lap, but he was more subdued than usual as well.

"Where's home?" she said stupidly.

Castle's face blanked and then grew stony. "The castle. Home. Carrie is making up the infusion now and we'll take it with us. Go back home."

"What about - everything else?"

"Colin and Mark are putting together a team, coordinates, parameters for the mission. They'll ride out from here. Carrie will go back to the farm, but we'll talk - we'll keep in constant communication. If we need her, she can come."

"And - Alex and Anne? Ben?"

"We've supplied them from the vault and cleared it out. They'll work on shutting down operations. He will do it."

"You think you can just make him?"

"I'm sending in a task force," he said grimly. His jaw worked. "They'll be over the work of shutting things down, clearing out the money. You said it had to be - this is how we avoid bloodshed, Kate."

She felt too tired to think, too exhausted to come up with arguments for why going home was a bad idea right now. But she wanted it so badly. She wanted to sleep for ages. Apparently, the boys did too, because she didn't think this was all her own craving.

"Okay," she said finally. "And - we're supposed to be helping with Wolf."

"Exactly." Castle looked flushed with pride, as if he'd done something monumental, convincing her to come home. He crouched before her chair and kissed her lips softly. "I'll get everything together, all our stuff packed, boys' rag doll and bunny, everything. Carrie will have the infusion ready by that time. And then I'll come get you when the car is here."

"Yeah," she whispered.

"Hang in there." His lips grazed hers again. "We're gonna make it."

"I might - fall asleep so... take him?"

"Wyatt?" Castle ruffled the boy's hair. "Hey, my man, can we leave Mommy to sleep?"

"My mommy."

"Still yours. But why don't you come with me for a little bit?"

"No."

Kate laughed, startled, and she saw Castle attempting to smother a grin himself. She cupped the side of Wyatt's face. "I guess I shouldn't have laughed. Might encourage him."

Castle let out a little huff, but he was smiling now. He reached in and tickled Wyatt's knee. "Alright, since you actually let us know your wishes, I'll have to abide by them. Mommy's gonna sleep, though, son. Don't bother her."

"Mommy, eep."

"Basically," Castle chuckled, kissing Wyatt's cheek before standing up again.

She had never really thought about it before, but she was proud that these boys' father kissed them. She wasn't sure she'd really seen many fathers kissing their sons before, but Castle did. He loved on them in physical ways, touches and comfort and hugs and kisses. And she wanted that for them; she was glad they had it now.

"Castle?"

He was already halfway to the door with a sleepy James. But he turned to look at her.

"Thank you."

He gave her a salute and kept on going.

\-----

He held her hand as he walked them towards the Jeep. Colin had a grip on Wyatt, but the boy had wanted to walk on his own. James was asleep in Carrie's arms, sacked out, and that had revived Kate a little bit it seemed. 

Castle had one of their bags over his shoulder, and he flipped Kate's hand for her attention. She took her eyes off Wyatt's progress and glanced at him. He tried on a smile, hoping only to connect with her, and somehow, she gave him a wide and startling smile back. All white teeth and lips, so that it traveled up to her eyes and made her face come alive.

He felt stunned by it.

Mark had the door open for Carrie who was already lowering James into his car seat. Wyatt and Colin were still a few steps back, so that Castle and Kate were alone for the moment on the sidewalk. He leaned in and cupped her face, framing that smile, meaning to kiss her but never quite making it there. Still in awe.

"Ready to go home?" he murmured, for lack of anything remotely graceful to say.

"Yeah. Just - it's over with, you know? This part anyway. We have a plan in place and there are things to do and that feels better. Like I'm getting somewhere," she said, explaining what he hadn't been able to ask.

Why do you smile at me like that?

"Yeah," he answered. "I know." He released her face and she ducked her head, moved past him for the back door. He watched her lean in over the sleeping James, brushing her lips in a kiss at his forehead. She caught him looking and rolled her eyes - at herself, maybe, he thought - and then she moved back to Wyatt.

Colin had just approached with the boy, and rather than have Kate try to pick him up right now, Castle tossed his bag into the back and turned to grab Wyatt himself. "Hey, kid. Time to go."

"Daddy."

"Yup. That's me. Come on, let's put you in your seat." Mark was moving back towards the sidewalk with his arm around Carrie's waist. Castle stepped around them and tucked Wyatt into the car seat, pulling the straps over his head and buckling it into the base. Wyatt lifted a hand and waved, making Carrie laugh and wave back, blowing him kisses.

Wyatt beamed, looking charmed, and pulled his hand into his neck, leaning against his own arm and flushing pink. He chortled and tried the wave again, eliciting the same results, and Kate was rolling her eyes now at him. She pushed in between Castle and kid and she caught his hand, kissing his palm.

"You little charmer," she murmured. "Just like your daddy, huh? You should sleep, baby, if you can. Long drive."

She turned and looked startled when he met her eyes, but he knew it was just the emotion rolling over him that she could see, knew she was surprised by it. Well, sometimes he was too. It knocked him off guard, all this feeling.

He shook his head and she didn't push, just grabbed his wrist and squeezed as if in sympathy before heading around the other side of the Jeep. Castle turned and clasped his brother's hand, pulled him in for a hug.

"Fuck, brother," Colin grunted. "Too hard. Don't know your own strength."

"Sorry."

"I was kidding," Colin sighed. "This woman has seriously turned you inside out."

"Boys, too," he grumbled, not bothering to deny it.

Colin thumped his back. "Boys, too. Yeah. Go. I've got this covered. We packed the last of the elixir and shipped it while you were getting the boys' stuff together. You've got one case with you is all."

He nodded. "A case will last us for a good while."

"Should. The infusion is in the back inside the travel cooler, packed in chemical ice, and should be fine so long as you don't go rooting around in there."

"No. We won't need to touch it."

"Good. Well." Colin seemed a loss for words. He shoved roughly on Castle's shoulder and stepped back. "Don't let her near the knives, brother."

"Do my best to not have to need to worry about the knives," Castle said, lifting an eyebrow.

Colin curled his nose. "I don't want to hear about your sex life. I'm finally getting distance from your constant-"

Castle cuffed his brother's shoulder and shook his head, moved on to the Eastmans. Kate had already said her good-byes and was giving Colin a hug that he seemed entirely bewildered by. Which made Castle smile, so it was with a superior smirk he turned to Mark.

Mark scowled.

Castle scowled back, and Carrie stepped between them, sliding her arms around his waist in a brief but strong hug. "Don't be bristling hedgehogs. You're both just trying to look out for her the best way you know how."

Castle nodded, and Mark stood down a little. Offered his hand as Carrie pulled back. Castle took it. "Thank you. Sincerely. You're a big part of why this has worked."

"And you're a big part of why she's still here," Mark said. His voice was steady but his eyes were grave. They had both seen her last night, how resolved to her own death; they would carry that.

"I'm gonna keep her here," he said, making a promise he knew he didn't ultimately have control over.

"I'll do whatever I can to help you keep your word," Eastman answered.

A warning, but also a massive statement of trust. Eastman didn't like their relationship, didn't like how it looked, how it appeared, but he saw the writing on the wall.

Or well, he'd heard them through the walls. 

It was already a done deal.

They shook hands and then Castle turned and opened the driver's side door, got in behind the wheel. Kate was already in the passenger seat, twisted around to hand Wyatt his juice and a package of graham crackers, and when she turned back around, she smiled at him.

"Ready?" she said.

"Yeah," he nodded. Ready.

Ready to take her home.

\-----


	7. Chapter 7

"I know I have to talk," she admitted. She had slipped her sandals off and propped her feet up on the dashboard, remembering what it felt like to road trip with her parents that time they'd driven to Walt Disney World in Florida. The sun-soaked land, the light pouring through the windows. 

"You do," he answered. He was easy in the seat beside her, and she diverted a moment to look at the boys in the back.

"James is awake," she said softly, giving the boy a smile. "Hey, there, my man. You're so quiet, I didn't know you were awake."

"Hi, Mommy."

"That really is very advanced," Castle said, lifting his voice at the end as if addressing James behind him. "You know that, Jay? You're very advanced for a fifteen month old."

"Oh, he is fifteen months old," she said, realizing. Had she not been paying attention? "You guys are one month bigger. Nearly a whole month out of that place, James." She reached back and caught his hand, rubbed her thumb into his palm like she had in the facility. But this time she could smile, she could grin at him and he, of course, grinned right back.

She sank into her seat once more, keeping eye contact with him. James had his head leaning against the raised wing of the car seat, restful or quiet, maybe, but not that weariness that had swamped him earlier. And herself.

"I used to hold them, nurse them standing up," she said, trying to start that talking part she was so bad at. "And I'd have my arm crooked like this-" She curled her arm in front of her, miming the perfect curve of their little skulls in the bend of her elbow. "So if I had a good enough grip, if I could keep them balanced at the inside of my wrist-" She flipped her hand so that it was palm up, her thumb out. "Then I could would nudge my thumb into the curl of their fingers. So soft."

Castle took a fast glance at her, and she tried not to see it. Tried to pretend it didn't gut him out, her stories. 

"At first, you know, they would hang on to my shirt or splay their fingers over my breast. Sweet. Wyatt always had to act up a little, make faces or squirm, and after a while I realized he was just postponing the inevitable. He didn't want to leave."

"I wouldn't either."

She laughed, startled into it, and looked over at him to find he hadn't exactly meant it as a joke. But he offered her a sheepish smile. She twitched her lips at him and shook her head. "Well. He nursed first, so it wasn't very fair for James. But anyway, after those first few weeks, they figured it out. That my thumb would be there right at their sides, waiting for them. So... yeah. Advanced is a word for it. But I think, too, they had to be in order to survive."

"You all had to be," he said roughly. "I wish I'd been there, known. I wish I could've seen them when they were born, seen you holding them."

She closed her eyes and pressed her head back against the seat. "I - yeah. Me too."

"I don't know that I - I have no idea how to be a good father, but it's strange how... how I can be their dad. They go easy on me, they don't - ask for much, you know? And then they smile at me and... well." He cleared his throat, and it made her open her eyes to see him. He looked embarrassed at the words that had come out of his mouth.

She rested her elbow on the center console and stroked her fingers along his forearm where he'd rested his own. "Wyatt's smile is different from James's. When Wyatt smiles, you know he's so pleased with you. Like you've done good. And you can't help but feel proud of yourself, like a baby can at all affect your sense of self worth."

"Um. Yes. I think he does, actually. Mine anyway. I feel a fuck of a lot more confident if he's smiled at me."

She grinned. "Yeah." 

Castle glanced at her. "But, you're right. James smiles like he's just overwhelmed. Overwhelmed to be in your presence. To be with you and have you looking at him. Like he's the one who's honored."

“Yeah,” she said quietly, turning her head to look back at the boy in his car seat. Her son. “Honored.” He ducked his head and turned his face into the side of the seat, peered out at her from beneath his lashes. “I thought shy, but that’s not it. He’s confident enough; he has no problems with people. But that’s what it is. He’s-”

“In awe,” Castle murmured. “Of his mother.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, watched James send her adoring looks from the corners of his eyes. Her chest was too tight, and she had to reach back, tug on his foot because her throat wouldn’t open up enough for words.

“They’re good kids,” Castle said into her silence. The sound of the interstate under their tires was loud and filled the Jeep, keeping Wyatt pulled down into sleep, making James drift in and out. Castle drove fast, but she was never worried about it, even when he kept looking at her like he was now. “It’s not just being smart and clever and knowing how to do tricks. They’re - inherently good. Good boys. They protect each other and watch out for you. They play. They know how to laugh, how to love. They’ve built a complicated social structure with some pretty limited resources, and they didn’t let go.”

She glanced at him. 

He took his hand off the bottom of the steering wheel, shifted it to lay palm up on the center console. Waiting for her. She put her hand in his and he tugged her up to his lips to kiss her knuckles. 

“I know what social deprivation does to the brain, neurologically. The physiology of your brain can change over time. But these boys - they had one healthy and complete social exchange, and they held on to it.”

She turned her head to glance out the window, the flow of the landscape’s shifting horizon. Trees to fields to houses to trees, ever changing. “You make it sound so clinical.”

“No, sorry,” he sighed. “I do that sometimes. Turn real people into inanimate objects. Real pain, real sorrow, real fear - they get switched off in my brain. It’s - I mean, it’s a medical thing, a physiological thing. That’s why I’ve had so many MRIs.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Do what?”

His shoulders hunched. “Apparently I - shut down my pain complex. It’s a group of regions in the brain which associate emotional reactions to physical pain receptors. For example, if you stabbed yourself in the hand, you’d feel it physically, but you’d also feel it emotionally. And when you watch a movie of someone being stabbed, you do the same - you mirror their experience, you go through it.”

“What - how do you know this?”

“There have been a lot of studies on the brain, half of which my father had a hand in. Discovering the connections between the physical structures of the brain and the ability to shoot to kill or the shutdown of emotions. He tailored me - basically.”

“And you - do that? You can shut off real emotions?”

He nodded, but his jaw worked. “I used to anyway. He called it active dehumanization.” Castle let out a short breath. “I could, basically, flip a switch and turn myself into a psychopath.”

“No.”

He glanced at her. “Yes.”

“No,” she insisted. “You are not a psychopath, no matter what switch you flip inside your head.”

“Well.”

“No. I don’t believe it. I know you. You have too much - there’s too much going on in your head, Castle. I can feel it.”

“Now there is,” he said quietly. “And it happens still, from time to time. I fall into the habit of relegating people to objects, which means all social rules like no killing, no torture - those go by the wayside. It’s how I could do my job, the only way I could do it. But you - it’s like you turned a key in my brain. Like the touch of you was - was the last piece of a puzzle I never knew was missing. Now everything works, everything - flows together. That pain complex - it’s on all the time.”

“Pain,” she whispered, staring out of the passenger window.

“That’s just what they call it - the ability to empathize. To physically go through what someone else is going through. I - well - I like it. I like all of this messy stuff. It’s - being alive, Kate. I wasn’t really alive before you.”

She chewed on her knuckle and tried to imagine this man without the overflowing well of compassion and strength and loyalty he’d shown these last three weeks. The love.

It seemed impossible.

“When you’re alone for so long,” she started quietly, “when you’re in a room by yourself for days and days, everything slows down. You go through every memory you have, you pull about every event or scene, you rehearse old conversations or fights. And it takes maybe thirty minutes - your whole life, the whole of your being - all in thirty minutes. And you’ve got hours and days and - and years to go. You’ve got years, and you’re nothing more than an animal, pacing in a cage. Your brain turns on itself. Memories aren’t enough, can’t sustain that - that craving for other people, voices, something. And so you invent things, you remake the world out of anything at hand. The bed, the sink, the toilet, back to the bed - every last piece is larger than life - is life itself. So that a scalpel blade becomes your Messiah.”

Castle’s hand tightened around hers, and for a long time he said nothing at all, just drove.

She finally tilted her head back to the seat and closed her eyes, and then Castle spoke.

“That’s the most I’ve heard you say.” He gripped her hand and pulled it to his chest. “Ever. The most - ever, Kate.”

She let out a breath. “I don’t - want to give it words and a voice because then it has a shape.”

“I need the shape of things,” he said roughly. “I need the pain complex turned on in my brain. I need you to remake the world for me, because I can’t do it alone.”

Kate sighed, but it wasn’t defeat. She thought, maybe, it was relief.

The relief of no longer being alone.

\-----

Castle stroked the tips of his fingers up and down her knuckles, from the wide joint in the middle, up the metatarsal, to the knobby knuckle at the rise of her hand. And then down again. She didn’t move an inch, sat perfectly still beside him, and he drove the Jeep on through the endless golden afternoon.

Her words came slowly, with great pauses, but she spoke. She had seen the necessity of communication, he thought, and she was trying.

It was quite a lot more than he’d expected.

“He had a car,” she said then. All of the sudden into their silence.

“He?”

“Dick Coonan.”

His fingers stilled in their trek, gathered at the top of her knuckles like reaching a summit. “Coonan.”

“His arm was around my neck. That’s how he got me. He came up behind us and Mom was - was down before I even knew what was happening. I never saw him there. I tried to grab for her as she collapsed, and then I saw - I was on my knees, reaching for her, and then he was there. He stabbed her in the chest, over and over, no matter what I did, how I - like I was nothing. A gnat. And he just kept swatting me down.”

“Did he hurt you?” he husked.

She rubbed one hand at the top of her thigh. He had seen her do it before, whenever she was in another time, and only now did it occur to him that it was a wound.

“He hurt you-”

“He murdered my mother. Of course he hurt me.”

She’d been swatted down like a gnat. A nineteen year old girl with no need for self-defense moves going up against a career Army sniper and black ops assassin. She could’ve run at Coonan all day and never gotten close to deterring that man, especially during his black outs. Swatted down.

“I had a scar for a year,” she mumbled. “And then it went away.”

“The elixir,” he sighed. A scar. On her thigh. So she’d gotten in the way of Coonan’s knife. “You attacked him and-?”

She stopped rubbing her thigh, sat rigidly in the seat. “And then - he picked me up like a rag doll. Around my neck, dragged me off. He wasn’t - he looked insane. I thought he was some street person, totally had lost it, but when I started clawing at his arm, trying to dig in my heels, he laughed and said he liked it rough.”

“God damn,” he growled.

“I could see Mom lying - lying there.” Her free hand came up and touched the hollow of her throat, and he realized she was wearing the gold necklace, the one her mother had given her. She twisted the strand in her fingers. “Her eyes on me. On me being dragged off. And she died like that, Castle. She died thinking...”

“That you would be raped and murdered,” he finished. Had to be said, all of it. It had to be out there.

She let out a shuddering breath.

“At least your dad knew you were alive? At least he had that hope to hold onto.”

“I guess,” she whispered.

“That’s an amazing kind of love,” he murmured. “Searching for you, never giving up. It’s - he really cherished you.”

Her hand twitched under his. “He was my dad,” she said softly.

“I wish I knew what that meant. That sound in your voice.”

Kate turned to look at him, but he was negotiating a turn and he couldn’t spare her a glance. She leaned in against the center console and then suddenly her lips were touching his cheek.

“You will. You already do, with those boys. When Wyatt lifts his arms for you to pick him up-?”

“O-oh,” he stuttered. “I - yeah.”

“You’re his daddy,” she murmured. She sounded - faintly stunned. Kate flipped her hand under his and their palms kissed. “Someday, he’ll say that about you.”

“You think James ever will?” he said, giving her a wry twist of his lips. Not that James didn’t like him- “Nah. I think he’ll always be a mama’s boy.”

She gave a little puff a laughter and shook her head, but he saw her turn to check on the boys again. “Asleep,” she murmured, as if he had asked.

Maybe he had.

“Your mom knows. Your mom and dad - they both know, now. They have to.”

She sighed. “I wish I could - really believe it. Eats away at me, gnaws on me. Thinking about that... anguish. I hadn’t - before the boys, I just hadn’t realized how terrible my mom’s last moments were. All I’d thought about before was the pain, being stabbed, dy-dying. But I’m - I’m a mom, and I know exactly how awful, oh God, every time they were taken away from me-”

He squeezed her hand hard, gripping as if to hold her here. She raised her free hand and swiped at her cheeks.

“They know,” Castle told her. “They have to. How it’s being put to right again. They have to. Or the world isn’t - this whole thing is pointless.”

“Is it not?” she said, bitterness leaking out of her voice.

He laced his fingers through hers. “No. It’s not pointless. It used to feel that way, but every time I bailed out my little brother, I did it for a reason. Why should I keep Colin from the path he’s hellbent on following? But I do. I do, Kate. And why does Colin keep pulling himself back from edge? Why do you?”

“Because I don’t know any better.”

“But you do. Oh, God, if anyone knows better, it’s you,” he cried out. “The horrifying - this life you’ve endured. You told me - it would be so much easier to just - walk away. Go away. But you don’t. You didn’t walk off into the sunset, you didn’t kill yourself. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do.”

“Enlighten me,” she muttered.

“Love.”

She said nothing, but he wanted to be clear.

He had to be clear. “This is my first attempt at any kind of master-plan philosophy, so excuse my grandiose statements. But love. Why else would it matter? Why else would we keep doing any of this? You love our sons. You love your parents.” Me. “You love, Kate. And it holds you together and makes you put one foot in front of the other.”  
“And you?” she said, and his heart stampeded. She set her jaw. “You love Colin. You love - the boys and me. You love - what? This life?”

“Maybe just what’s possible. The possibility for - for joy. For those moments we’ve had where it didn’t feel hopeless and destructive and broken.”

“It feels mostly broken-”

“Mostly. But not all the time,” he insisted.

She sighed. Her fingers flexed around his but she didn’t try to shake him off.

“So that’s my theory anyway,” he told her. “Just. You know. Keep it in mind.”

“Love,” she said, as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. “And why did my parents die? Why was I - taken and - and used? Not for love.”

“No.”

“Then why?”

There was no answer for that. There were a million answers. It was the horror of this broken world, and there were no words that would fix it.

But Castle could, and did, bring her hand to his lips and press a kiss to her knuckles before keeping her against his chest. Let her feel the vibrations of his voice and the steady thump of his heart.

“I love you.”

It wasn’t an answer, and it was.

\-----

“Yeah,” she answered. Somehow this was easier than she’d expected, telling him how it had happened. “He was there. I was bleeding, and he bound up the wound.”

“On your thigh,” Castle said tersely. His hand clutched at the steering wheel like he was wringing her father’s neck.

Oh, on her thigh. “Yes,” she answered. “But not like that. Actually, I - compared to Coonan, whose name I didn’t even know at that point, Black was actually - a relief.”

“The idea that Black could be a relief scares the shit out of me,” Castle muttered. 

“In comparison,” she mumbled.

Castle’s jaw worked, but he didn’t say anything more, and she realized it was her turn again. They’d started trading back and forth, and usually, she’d discovered that she was the one who led them into dead ends. That she would engineer the conversation so that she could make a comment and then there would be nothing. 

But Castle was doing an admirable job of saying nothing until she’d found the track of her thought and gotten back to it.

“You really are good at shrinking,” she muttered.

“If we were in bed, I’d be offended.”

She laughed, gripping his hand reflexively where he still held her against his chest. “Babe, you got nothing to worry about.”

“I do know that,” he said in return. “How am I really good at shrinking?”

“You shut up and make me talk.”

“Mm, well, I’ve had a lot of therapy sessions myself. Part of the job.”

“It works, whatever it is. Mind voodoo. Your Jedi tricks.”

He laughed then, pressing her hand against his ribs. “Sure. Jedi? Well, anyway, wound bound and then what.”

“Well, it was just the three of us at the table. Your dad made me sit down with them, sit at the table-”

“With your hands still cuffed behind your back and the gag?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “Knows his stuff.” He’d been good at manipulating, but he’d also been good at knowing just how to keep her contained. Right from the beginning. Castle was like-

She froze.

His thumb traced over her knuckles. “That’s not comfortable,” he muttered, frowning. “And your leg - must have been on fire.”

“He had something - I don’t know what it was - but everything was numb. It wasn’t - pleasant. But I wasn’t really... blood loss, I think.”

“Shock,” he said. “Not just the wound in your thigh, but the whole night. The ride with him to the bar.”

She nodded. “Yeah, guess so. And then they just worked out this deal, or tried to, but Coonan was seriously insane. Black kept giving me these looks, like we were sharing a secret, and before I knew it, he’d traded for me.”

“How’d you realize he’d done that?”

“He said, I’ll take her. And Coonan actually agreed. He didn’t look like he liked it any, but he couldn’t say no. And then Black was hauling me to my feet and basically crutched me out of there. I kept thinking, don’t turn your back on him, but he never seemed to care. I thought - it felt like I’d been saved.”

Castle actually shivered. She felt it move down his body and vibrate through the bones of her hand as he held on to her. He knew - he’d been raised by Black - and he had a concrete sense of just what she’d been in for, and he was probably comparing that version to Coonan. How intensely bad it had been with Coonan.

But. “I was pretty much in shock the whole time, Castle. Whenever I tried to fight him, he just - swatted me down. My head was - fuzzy.”

His lips against her knuckles again. His breath was short, hard, and then it came out again. “Black took you.”

“He had a car. He put me in the backseat, tinted windows, and for a while I thought he was taking me to the hospital. Even though he’d done a deal with the guy, I thought it was over.”

His silence stayed, and the car hummed over the interstate, and she found it hard to be there and here at the same time. They weren’t - both cars, both a ride where she was just a passenger, but Castle’s hand was wrapped around hers and her sons were not only in her line of sight, but they were hers, they were undeniably hers, never to be taken from her again.

She wasn’t a naive nineteen year old, thinking she was saved only to wake up in a prison.

“What happened then?” he asked her.

She sighed. “I woke up in a hospital bed.”

“He took you to a hosp-” Castle cut himself off, growled. “Fuck. You woke up in that room.”

“Yeah. Only I didn’t know it was - I never knew where I was. I assumed it was a hospital, until someone called it the training facility.”

“Damn.”

She tilted her head back against the seat and watched the contrails splitting the blue sky. She had that memory overlaid on top of this one, the white ceiling in front of her eyes while the summer day tried to bleed through.

“Can we stop?” she said.

“A break? Yeah, course. What do you want to talk about instead? Or the radio, we could just listen to-”

“No, can we - stop the car? Just get out for a little while. The infusion is packed in chemical ice and I think-”

“Oh. Yeah. Kate. Honey, we can stop. Want to get a snack or find a - like a park?”

She let out a breath. “Just move around. I just need to - get out.”

“We can do that. You can do that. I’ll pull off at the next exit and see what they have.” His lips brushed the back of her knuckles, and he flipped on the turn signal, head-checked to change lanes. She watched him, the sharp features of his chin, his cheeks, his forehead, how the sunlight made his skin look like gold.

“Castle?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re a good man.”

\-----


	8. Chapter 8

The next exit turned out to host a Waffle House, two gas stations, and a country store run by Mennonites. Castle picked the country store on instinct and when he parked in the front lot and turned off the ignition, both of the boys woke as if a switch had flipped.

“Mommy,” James called from his seat, his voice groggy. 

“Here, sweetheart,” she murmured, reaching back and tugging on his toe.

“You, Mommy.”

“You want to come in with me?” she asked, and she cut her eyes to him, and of course he was popping open the driver’s side door immediately, ready to do her bidding.

“We’re all coming in. All of us. Mommy can wander around long as she wants. Right, guys?” He opened up the back door on his side, reached in to unbuckle James. “Have you out in a second, son.” He leaned in and kissed the boy’s temple, speaking just for him to hear. “You can help Mommy, can’t you? A little help, baby, if you understand.”

“Daddy,” James sighed, unfurling his fingers and holding up a hand as if offering Castle something.

“I see it, kiddo. You ready?” He maneuvered James out of the harness and pulled him out of his seat, turned around and passed the boy to his mother.

His mother. Damn. Sometimes it hit him all over again, how this fragile-strong girl was the mother to his sons. Two boys she had loved all alone, on her own, no help.

“Get Wyatt?” she said, as if it was a question.

“I got him. Go on in if you like.”

She nodded, rubbing James’s back with a hand, her other arm supporting James’s bottom. The boy clung to her, his face against her shoulder and his eyes on Castle, little fists in her shirt - her bra straps, Castle thought. 

He watched her move for the front porch of the country store even as she watched him, and he realized after too long that she was waiting to see Wyatt appear, that she couldn’t quite leave without knowing for sure.

“I’ll get him,” he said, shutting the back door hurrying around to the other side. He opened the boy’s door and Wyatt threw up both his arms, cheering. Castle laughed, surprised, and reached in to unbuckle the kid. “You goofball.” He kissed Wyatt’s forehead so he wouldn’t feel left out of the love, and pulled him out of his seat. “Let’s chase after Mommy.”

“My mommy.”

He shut the door and shifted Wyatt higher. “She’s yours and James’s both. Yeah. You lucky boy.”

“Ucky.”

“Close enough,” he smiled, remote locking the car. He caught up to Kate at the front porch where she was pacing in a tight circle, her arms shaking at the weight of James. He lifted an eyebrow.

“Hey,” she said weakly, her eyes sliding away.

Castle leaned over and set Wyatt on his feet, took James out of her arms to put him down with his brother. “Wyatt needs the practice,” he offered, knowing it was lame. She frowned, but he gave her his hand, hoping it was enough.

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“That way if you need to - hare off - you can do that. I’ll stick with the boys.” But his throat was dry even saying it. He meant it, of course, but it made his heart pound to think she might actually walk out of here.

“Thanks.” She nodded but she bent her knees and took James’s hand, as if she meant to stay.

Castle hustled for the door, opening it for her and the boys, waiting while Kate led James through. Wyatt, still back by the rocking chairs on the porch, pouted at them. “Come on, buddy. Follow Mommy inside.”

The mention of ‘mommy’ seemed to do the trick, because Wyatt unstuck his feet and wobbled his way through the front door. He plowed into the back of Kate and she laughed, turning to grab his arm. 

“Hey, my little man. What are you doing?”

“Mom-my,” he intoned.

“Yup, what do you need, Wy?”

“Mom-my.”

“I hear you, kid,” Castle said. “All you need is Mommy, am I right?” 

Kate gave him a look but she caught Wyatt by his hand, a boy in each now, and she walked them through the vestibule - slowly - making their way across the wooden boards. Castle eased the door shut behind them, following as they came to the first aisle, wandering in after them. 

Kate let go of their hands and the boys seemed to not know what to do next, twin sets of eyes peering up at her. She gestured down the aisle and waited on the boys to move, which they did wordlessly, as if the three of them were well-versed in silent communication.

Yeah. Probably so.

Damn, it was frightening how much that cut. 

Castle pushed his own hands into his pockets, taking a deep breath, tried not to look like he was hovering behind Kate. One of the store clerks was filling a bin with hand-stitched pot holders, and she cast the boys a look as if expecting trouble.

Oh. He hadn’t thought of that. How two toddlers - babies - might disrupt the order of this little store. How they might be asking too much of these boys for-

Well, but they seemed just fine. James was walking just ahead of them, peering past the end of the aisle with a curious look on his face. Wyatt had lifted a hand to whine at Kate, wanting her help, but Castle nudged the back of the boy’s head.

“On your own, kid. You can do it. Walk.” He pushed two fingers against Wyatt’s ear and the boy lifted his chin and glared at him, loudly protesting in some kind of baby language. 

Kate was already halfway down the aisle after James, who had turned the corner, but she glanced back at them, an eyebrow raised.

“Hush, son. You’re getting me in trouble. You’re fine.” For good measure, he thumped the kid’s ear and then gave him a little push, and Wyatt rocketed forward, as if he had only two settings, on and off. He ran for Kate, knocking into the back of her again, rebounding off, and he too disappeared around the corner.

Oh, shit. That was supposed to be his job.

“Hey, guys. Whoa. Wait for me. And don’t touch anything.” Castle hurried forward, sliding past Kate and the girl stocking the bin, and found himself in the next aisle.

Both boys turned back to look at him, hand in hand, faces with twin looks of perfect innocence.

He let out a breath and saluted them both. “Oh, good - good - job, men. Perfect soldiers.”

And then he heard, from behind him, Kate let out a sharp noise.

He twisted hard, a cold wash of horror through his guts, and reached out for her. “Baby, no. I didn’t mean it like that. Kate.”

She swallowed and pressed a hand to her face, nodding rapidly. “I know, I know, I know.”

“Kate,” he grunted, stepping into her and wrapping his arm around her shoulders, entirely forgetting the boys for the moment.

She wriggled free of him and pushed back, her brow furrowing. “Um. I have to - go to the bathroom.” She turned blindly and nearly plowed into the store worker. “Where’s your bathroom?”

The girl pointed. “At the back, there.”

And Kate was gone, just like that.

\-----

Kate bowed over the sink as the water ran, gurgling and cheerful, into the basin.

She was anything but.

Her heart was doing that skipping beats and not working thing, and she felt like complete shit while it did, as if not enough oxygen was getting to her extremities, and too much to her brain. Hyperaware in her nervous system but deprived in all the parts of her that would or could actually deal.

She sucked down air and knew she was going to hyperventilate. She had never hyperventilated before, but she was going to do it now.

Oh, God, how mortifying. A damn Amish bathroom. Or whatever these people were. Quaker? Not the word. She had it somewhere, it just wouldn't come. She was going to suffocate in a bathroom while Castle and the boys waited outside, a little anxious for her, looking at homemade potpourri and Bible verses embroidered on table cloths.

She groaned and stuck her head in the water, gasping when the shock of cold ran into her eyes, her ear, around her neck and down her shirt. She jerked back, spluttering, the icy water skating between her breasts and kissing her belly with cold.

Okay. Okay, alive again. She was alive.

Her heart double-beat and she sucked in another breath, and now she was shaking everywhere, all over, she was shaking so hard droplets of water were flying off her chin.

Kate shut off the water and sank to the sparkling floor - at least it was clean; thank God for small favors - and she pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed her forehead against them.

Also Castle had not yet sent in that girl filling up the bins. That was another small favor. He was waiting, giving her space; he wasn't be overbearing and causing her further mortification. She would - have to reward him for that.

She wondered if he would come into the bathroom himself, draw her to her feet. Make her stand up and face the mirror, spreading her legs a little just with the width of his body at her back, inadvertently arousing. Make her look at herself, his voice rumbling in her ear, how strong he saw her, how capable he deluded himself into thinking she was.

But she was, wasn't she? Three years she had survived John Black, and she wasn't going to let him beat her now, in a fucking country store in the middle of New York state, all because Castle had called two well-behaved boys whom he loved like crazy good soldiers.

What the fuck did it matter?

And now she was cursing just like him, using his language to bolster herself, but why shouldn't she? It worked. He worked, and she lifted her head, still stuttering every other breath, and she pressed her elbows back into the cabinets under the sinks and leveraged herself up.

On her feet again, feeling light-headed and sick and that dizzying sense of not enough air, she turned around and looked at herself in the mirror.

She had a mirror. She had the ability and freedom to open that bathroom door and step outside and pick up her babies, her babies, and cradle them to her chest and love on them. Or.

She could stand here and call Castle into the bathroom and have him press up against her back with his hands so wide and rough at her hips. Sliding under her shirt to chase those cold streaks of water, rucking up the material and cupping her breasts in the bra. His hot mouth at the back of her neck, licking water from her skin.

Take her. Or maybe just knead her breast and push his hand down the front of her jeans, that clumsy and yet so deft way her pushed his fingers between her legs and rubbed her off. How the fuck did he do that, when she had always required such a specific series of touches, in such a prescribed way?

Her cheeks were pink now. Her face pallid but her cheeks pink. Lips bloodless but her skin heating in every place she imagined him.

Why couldn't they? Why couldn't she let herself? Why did she have to run when all she had to do was turn her body into his and stroke his cock through the material of his pants and wait for him to be all over her?

Her breath steadied. A little. 

She scrubbed her hands down her face and swiped streaks of mascara from under her eyes. Tendrils of hair snaked at her neck where the water hadn't yet dried, but she breathing again. Her heart was beating, throbbing between her legs.

When they got to someplace - when they got home - she was going to do this very thing, just as she'd imagined it, have him touch her, watch his face in the mirror and how he looked at her when his hands were filled with her flesh. 

Until then, she was going to have to squirm for the rest of the trip. She could live with that.

She could live.

\-----

She looked shaky and washed out, but she was smiling. A brittle smile, but that was more than he'd expected.

She didn't take James's hand though he held it up to her, so Castle took that as his cue, taking James's hand himself and then Wyatt's for good measure. "Come on, guys. Let's see if they have any toys. Or food. Either one. Mommy might want to look at the - uh - clothes?"

She let out a strangled noise that he thought might be a laugh, and waved him off. He went on ahead of her, throwing her glances over his shoulder from time to time as he led the boys slowly down the aisle. She wandered after them, about five feet away, as if she thought she was too dangerous for proximity.

She might be right. Not to him, of course; he could take her, handle her. But a scene in a country store wasn't exactly lying low, and if she did accidentally hurt the boys - she wouldn't, but chain reactions happened - then she'd feel infinitely worse about herself.

She was the perfect mother to these boys, but he had the feeling she thought she had to be simply perfect. That wasn't the case, but try convincing Kate Beckett of any of that. 

He let go of the boys' hands, straightening up from his crouch - he just couldn't do it any longer - and he let them go ahead to the racks of snack foods, packaged by hand from fresh and organic ingredients, actually pretty damn appealing. He kept an eye on them, and one on Kate, but she was wandering like a sad ghost through the aisles of hand-quilted blankets, running her fingers over the patterns and needle-work as if her mind was anywhere but here.

He wasn't getting a really terrible vibe from her, and James and Wyatt were both mild, but he'd already figured out he couldn't rely on that. After the discovery that she'd been thinking the zoo was her last fucking day with them, and how placid and calm she'd been, there was no way he was taking her mental state for granted.

He just didn't know how to ask her do you feel like walking out in front of a bus or what? 

Castle let out a breath and touched the top of Wyatt's head, stilling the boy's wild clutch at a bag of peanuts. "Not yet, my man. Pretty sure babies can't eat peanuts." He pushed his knuckles into Wyatt's temple. "Try the puffy stuff. I don't know what it is, but it looks soft and edible."

"That's a good snack for babies," the girl said suddenly from behind. Castle turned and found the store worked with the empty box in her hands, nodding to the rack. "It kinda melts in their mouths a little bit. My girls love it."

"Your - daughters?" he said, having to clear his throat of the surprise. She looked all of nineteen-

Ah, fuck. She looked all of nineteen.

"I have two of my own," the girl - woman - smiled. "That's the flavored he's got right now. Mild cheese made from goats' milk though, so no allergies, if you're a mind to-"

"Oh, no," he fumbled. "No allergies." Fuck, what did he know? 

"It's basically puffed rice," the girl said, shrugging. "Bland and easy."

"Alright," Castle nodded. "Sounds like I'm sold. Boys-" He winced at the way it came out of his mouth, the tone of it, commanding, when that had been his father's word. "Hey, guys, you want some? I'll buy you one each, if you pick it out."

The girl laughed, as if he were making a joke, but Wyatt squawked in appreciation and held up the cheddar to Castle while James merely touched a finger to the plain one. The girl's jaw dropped, and Castle felt that absurd rush of pride and satisfaction.

"They're pretty obedient kids," he explained with a shrug. "Had to be, you know? Twins make more than twice the work-"

"Oh, yes, yes," the girl nodded, like that explained everything. Twins. Well, maybe it did. Lot of myths out there about twins that people half believed. Maybe it could be that easy. "I'll take these to the register if you want? Or you can open them up and start right eating here in the store, we'll put it on your tab. It'll keep them distracted."

To test things a little, Castle handed them over to the girl. "No, they don't need the distraction. I'd rather the little one keep his hands free - catch himself when he falls. He's been slower to walk."

The girl blinked, like something Castle had said was entirely unheard of, but he couldn't be bothered to figure out why. This was their life, not hers, and it worked for them.

Wyatt grunted and head-butted the back of his thigh and Castle grinned and caught the boy by the shoulder. "Yeah, I hear you, my man. I'll stop talking about you. But you gotta walk. Come on. Let's catch up to Mommy."

He left the girl standing there with the two bags of puffed rice, and he nudged his sons towards Kate, wanting to check in with her, erase that look from her face.

\-----

She felt his hand at her back, knew it was him, but still couldn’t help her startle response.

Wyatt stumbled into her and caught himself by clutching her jeans, pressing his face between her knees and babbling up at her. Little goofy smile, like he was sharing a secret. She reached down and skimmed two fingers over his forehead, making him beam ever brighter.

“Hey, we should get one of these,” Castle said.

She jerked upright. “What.”

“They’re cool, aren’t they?” He lifted his hand and touched the one she’d been rooted in front of, rather blind to it. “Someone made this by hand. Put love into it. Even though it was hard.”

She flushed, narrowing her eyes at him. “You’re not subtle.”

“Am I not?” Crooked grin. 

“You’re supposedly a spy,” she muttered.

The crooked went away and was replaced with a full-lipped grin, looking something a lot like his son whose head was still stuck between her knees. “Supposedly,” Castle agreed. “Really do like these though.”

“It’s not exactly your style.”

“Is it yours?  
She opened her mouth but she found she didn’t really know; it was hard to make it seem important. 

“Well, you know it doesn’t have to go on the bed. The back of the couch. I know we go for more modern, Col and I, but the natural wood and stone have this kind of feel to it too.”

“Whatever, Castle,” she sighed. “I don’t - I really don’t have any idea.”

“Yeah, I want to buy us one. I wanna us all to cuddle on the couch like sappy idiots.”

“You’re impossible, you know that?”

His grin was practically radiant. “I know. I do. You’re stuck with me. So sorry for you.”

She rolled her eyes but he had somehow sillied her halfway out of panic, edging more towards a frantic irritation, the sense that he couldn’t possibly mean this, he better not mean any of this, oh God, he meant it, didn’t he?

Oh, God, stuck. He was stuck with her and he wanted to wrap her in a quilt and never let go.

“Don’t look so horrified, baby.” He darted in and kissed her nose, making her breath catch. “You’ll give me a complex.”

“Castle-” she croaked.

“Aren’t I right, guys? We’re gonna get this nice big blanket and make a warm and cozy wolf pile on the couch. Sound good?”

“Ood, Daddy!” Wyatt even reached his hand out to Castle as if for acknowledgment and Castle, of course, fist bumped him. 

“Not fair,” she whined. And she heard herself, she heard it and it helped too. “You’re all plotting against me.”

“Not all. James is reserving judgment, I think.”

She glanced past Castle to see the silent boy standing a little aways from the rest of them. “Jay?” she called, not liking the look on his face, the aloneness of how he kept himself apart.

“Mommy?”

“James, come here,” she said, her voice a little too sharp. She held out her hand to him, wriggling her fingers, trying to avoid accidentally crushing Wyatt between her knees. 

But James came running, missing her hand entirely to slam into her thigh, wrapping his arms around her as best he could.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she whispered, hunching over to cup the back of his head. “Is something wrong or are you just - a little solitary thing?”

“Lone wolf,” Castle said, head tilting. He didn’t look like he was being flippant actually, he looked serious. He squatted down and gripped James’s shoulder, but his head tilted back to look at her. “That’s okay, you know. He can be his own man. Nothing at all wrong with that. Wise man keeps his mouth shut.”

She let out a shaky breath and nodded, reassured - but mostly because Wyatt had gone through exactly the same things as James, but Wyatt was entirely the opposite. So maybe it was trauma, but it was also just personality.

“He’s - I feel like Wyatt is just you all over,” Kate sighed. “And James has too much of me-”

“Don’t say it like that,” Castle said. He took James out of her grasp and hugged the boy to his chest, both arms, as if she’d hurt James’s feelings. “It’s good, Jay.” He was practically whispering it into James’s ear, like it wasn’t for her at all. “Such a good thing, to be like your mommy. Makes you a good boy, makes you strong alone. Just like Mommy.”

Kate swallowed past the knot in her throat, somehow surprised by that, by the way Castle had cut her out of that conversation so that he could speak his own truth into James’s ear.

And why did she believe it?

For a second, for a heartbeat, she believed she could be good for James. 

She cleared her throat and glanced down at Wyatt, combed his hair back from his face. “Looks like you’re out of luck, Wy. You’re just Daddy through and through. Big goofball who thinks he knows everything.”

“I think you’re the only person in the world who would say that about me,” Castle said, his voice funny.

When she looked up at him to tease him a little more, she realized he was dead serious.

And he looked at her like no one in the world had ever-

“Damn. Damn it,” he gruffed, his jaw working as if he was trying not to cry. “Fuck it. We’re getting the fucking quilt, Kate. Don’t argue with me.”

No. 

No, she wouldn’t argue.

\-----

He carried James to the front of the store, leaving Kate back there with Wyatt to mark their place in the collection of quilts. He knew it was stupid and it would do basically nothing in the way of real comfort or solace, but he was buying her the fucking blanket if it killed him.

She did things to him he hadn't known were possible. Made him into a person who - who bought Mennonite quilts from country stores and carried his son in his arms and joked around about trivial things. She made him into a goofball and fuck - fuck - if that had ever been inside him somewhere, he was damned if he knew where.

But for the first time in his life, he felt like this was a space where he belonged. 

His most true self. Like he was no longer laboring under a legend that forced him to act and behave in a way that had molded his very thoughts and feelings. Now that he'd been broken free of that mold, his thoughts and feelings had broken free as well. Not having to be the extreme elite CIA agent had allowed him to feel for the first time.

To experience. He had been an artificial intelligence, cleverly programmed, but lacking any real ability to connect. He had been the embodiment of the Chinese room argument - receiving input in a language he hadn't known, using the symbols to look up other symbols to write a message back in that same still-unfathomable language. The people on the other side of his Chinese room could feel like they were interacting with a human being - he had all the right code and wiring - but never once had he known.

He had not been living.

Instead of passing him messages in Chinese, Kate had ripped open the door of his little boxed-in room and pressed her body to his and whispered her secrets in his ear. The touch of her, the skin and bones and beating heart of her had given him the knowledge, passed it from her to him, so that he no longer filed messages and looked up code.

Now he lived.

When she had broken out of her cage, she had broken him out as well.

The woman at the register was waiting on him expectantly. He cleared his throat and brought his mind back to the task at hand. "The quilt with the squares on it-"

The incredulous expression made him headcheck the back where Kate was still standing - and he discovered that most of the blankets had squares.

"Ah, yes. The one my - wife is standing in front of? The six-pointed flower things on a field of black, grey, and navy squares?"

"Yes, sir. Those are stars."

"The stars," he said, nodding. "Oh, yes, I see that. They're stars. Silver and pale blue and - that one?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'd like to buy that one."

"No problem," the woman smiled. "I'll have the men take it off the rack and fold it up for you. Do you need one of our heirloom storage boxes?"

"Oh, no, it's not - it'll be used right away," he said, shaking his head. "If you'll add the quilt to these snacks, and a couple of water bottles too."

"Yes, sir, we can do that. Are you wanting to check out now, or are you still looking around?"

He glanced back to Kate, wondering if she'd calmed enough to get back in the car. "We're still looking," he said finally, giving the woman a small smile. "You have - I don't know - anything special?"

The woman looked blank.

He sighed. "I don't know what I'm asking. Just - something different. Not the same as - everything else in the world. Just - for her. Just for her."

Her face softened. "We're mostly a bakery and grocery. The quilts are really - all of it."

He nodded, throat closing up. He would just have to find a place to let her loose and see what she gravitated towards. Or - actually - go online and browse, just the two of them, see what struck her, what she liked, how she wanted things to be arranged or what tone she wanted to set. It wasn't just clothes, he'd come to realize, it was all of life.

She was struggling to find meaning, and he wanted to give her as much of it as he could.

\-----

He was letting her pace.

She appreciated it, and her gratefulness kept her steps short and her circle hobbled, but she still kept turning her back on him and the boys. Every time she did, her heart experienced this little strange electric current, like a thrill if she could be thrilled ever again.

Like feeling if the panic didn’t have such a chokehold on her.

She paced under the trees at the side of the country store, and with each revolution, each time she turned and saw her sons and Castle hanging out on the porch together, it restarted her heart.

She was figuring out that sometimes only movement made things better.

Even going in circles.

The guys from the store had placed the folded quilt into Castle’s arms and he had loaded it into the Jeep with the rest of the snacks he’d bought. But he’d come back to her and she’d been off like a shot, running for the trees and leaving him behind with the boys.

He hadn’t called after her, hadn’t chased her, and after a hundred yards, she had slowed, and stopped, and tilted her face up to the sun.

And then half-circled back.

James was rocking slowly in his wooden child-sized rocket while Wyatt was going to town in the adult one. Swamped by the size differential, Wyatt was nevertheless rocking with his whole body and forcing Castle to keep a hand close just to catch him.

She realized she was halfway up the porch steps when Castle lifted his head and smiled.

She let out a shaky breath and smiled back, nodding.

She was okay now. She was going to be okay. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said.

“No, honey. Whenever you are.”

She nodded again, feeling stupid, feeling shaky and newborn, but she merely sank down into a rocking chair beside James’s and closed her eyes.

Whenever she was ready.

\-----


	9. Chapter 9

He got funny looks from the store clerk when she came outside and deposited two planters in a stack against one of the front porch railings. She had a hand-lettered sign listing the price, which she arranged carefully, and then she shot them another look as she went back inside.

Kate was still eyes-closed and manically rocking beside James, her foot pushing off hard. Strident. But he could tell it was self-soothing, that she needed it to calm herself down. Whether it was the movement or the solitude, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to take it away from her.

Wyatt giggled like a fool and rocked about as hard as Kate was doing, back and forth, his head tilting back like he was on a swing set and flying.

Oh, well, fuck. They’d been on the swings at the park that day, and how much had Wyatt loved that? Damn, these kids needed a fucking swing set. He could do that. The walled in section of the back yard castle definitely had enough space for that.

Suddenly Kate was out of the rocker and drawing James up into her arms, standing rigid on the porch with her face buried in the boy’s neck and shoulder. James, good boy, didn’t try to squirm away, he just endured it, a little hand patting her. Kate took a long, shuddering breath and then lifted her head.

Her eyes came straight to his. “I want to get out of here.”

“Alright,” he said, going for easy, relaxed, but feeling it in him too. That jittery edge. He didn’t know if it was her feeling tunneling into him or his own feeling for her, but it was pretty potent. 

He stood up and stepped into Wyatt’s rocking chair to stop its forward movement. The boy gasped and giggled as he was slung forward, but Castle got his hands on Wyatt’s body, stood him up for a second.

“Time to go, Wy,” he told the boy.

Wyatt giggled helplessly and lifted his arms to Castle, apparently willing to be picked up and to leave the rocking chair behind. Castle did, turning around with Wyatt still squirmy and wriggling, his happiness infectious.

James was quiet in Kate’s arms, and her eyes went back and forth between the two, how different they were, and now resignation flooded her, and her jaw set as if she were trying to fight it off.

All those damn lies his father had told her, and how much she still heard them.

“James, come here,” he said, reaching his free arm out for the boy. And of course, Kate gave him up with a slump in her shoulders, a desolation on her face that gutted him. But he wasn’t done. “Wyatt, go see Mommy. Let Mommy deal with your silly giggles.”

Wyatt was already happily leaning out for Kate, even as Castle had James clinging to his shirt, both boys at one time. And for a heartbeat, Kate didn’t reach for Wyatt, didn’t lift her hands, just stared at him.

“Mommy,” Wyatt said, and it was so obvious that her name was a cheer, a triumph, that it couldn’t be denied. And Kate didn’t; she took Wyatt and hugged him and got a faceful of his squirming, wriggling, giggling self.

James laid his head on Castle’s shoulder.

“Hey, I know you’re tired,” he murmured, kissing the boy’s temple. The blood donation today had done a number on James. Though interestingly, Wyatt had already rebounded. The snacks on the front porch seemed to have given him plenty of sugar. 

But not James. Not James who was sinking into Castle like a weight, molding his body to his father’s. His eyes were already closed, like he had tried and fought so long to stay awake but he just couldn’t any longer.

He had tried.

“You tried, didn’t you, my man? You tried to help Mommy.” Castle cupped the back of the boy’s head and took a rough breath. “Okay, that’s - my fault. I didn’t expect to really - I don’t know what I thought would happen. You sleep, Jay. Sleep it off. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Kate said then. Her face was smooth, no longer furrowed and worried, but she was far from what he’d call light.

Castle cleared his throat and shrugged. “Life.” He gave her a lopsided smile that he didn’t feel. “I’m - going blind here. And they’re paying for my mistakes. I just don’t know how to make this right.”

Her mouth closed, her eyes blooming with a - a softness? Tenderness. He didn’t understand.

But Kate loosened an arm from Wyatt and stepped into him on the porch, the two boys pressed together as Kate circled her arm around his neck.

“That you want to - at all - make it right...” She trailed off and then he felt - like butterfly wings - her lashes against his temple, and then her mouth dusting his cheek. “I don’t think it can be made right. Just make - what we can out of it.”

His heart squeezed. That she wanted to make something out of this with him - that was good, and it was heady. But that she felt it would never really get much better - that killed him.

“I’m so damn lucky it’s you,” he said finally. “You were afraid, who their father would be, but God. It works both ways, Kate. No one else would be here right now, still standing, let alone standing with me. Me. I’m a bastard and a cold-hearted killer, and those are just the facts of my life. But you see something in me that makes me able.”

He wound down, the words missing, but the feeling expanding to burst in his chest.

“I really want you,” Kate whispered. “I wanted you in the bathroom and then under the trees and now I can’t - I need you to touch me.”

“How,” he husked. “Anything. I will do anything-”

“The boys,” she sighed.

“In their car seats,” he told her. His mouth ghosted her cheek, wanting her so badly he could already feel it, feel her around him. “Us in the far back - the seat is down, we don’t have that much luggage-”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Please. Drive us - somewhere and park and-”

“The boys will fall asleep-” he half-promised. 

“I don’t even care.”

“Okay, okay, let’s - come on. Come on, Kate, let’s go.”

And they tripped down the stairs and off the porch together, working side by side to strap the boys back in their car seats, as if her skin couldn’t be away from his skin for very long.

His heart was thundering.

He’d never had any idea that he could want so much.

\-----

Her throat was so closed up she could barely breathe. She had no words, only the constant thrum of desperation in her blood.

She glanced back and saw James had fallen asleep in his car seat. Wyatt was awake, but quiet, which meant he was settled in. He could entertain himself. She needed-

“Here,” Castle rasped.

She gripped the door handle as he took the Jeep off-road, churning gravel and dirt as they moved off the country highway. She saw pasture land, but not much in the way of ground cover. “No trees?”

“Barn,” he muttered.

Oh. Leave the boys in the car? That - felt wrong. She wasn’t sure he could-

Castle cranked the Jeep into park and popped open his door, startling her. “Stay,” he said intently.

She watched him jog in front of the Jeep to the barn where he lifted the heavy bar and dumped it to the earth. He was all broad and muscled work, sliding the barn door open, dragging the wooden bar away from the Jeep.

When he got back in, she dropped her hand on his thigh, gripping the flesh, the quads that flexed. He didn’t even look at her, just drove the Jeep into the dark, dusty interior of the barn. When they were encased in animal darkness, Castle put the car in park once more and this time turned off the engine.

“Come on,” he husked. “Help lock up.”

She nodded wordlessly, tumbling out of the passenger side and to the dirt floor. Hay and packed earth, the scent of cattle and horses. There were no animals inside the barn, she thought she remembered seeing cows in the far pasture, a horse. Out for the day.

“Kate.”

She hurried around the back of the Jeep to the open door, and she was surprised when he went outside. “What-”

“I’ve got to put the bar back up. I’ll shimmy up to the hayloft. Meet you there?”

“Yeah?” Her heart was thundering again. He was standing in full sun and it made beautiful golden haloes along each strand of his hair, his fists clenched. She reached out and gripped his shirt in her hands, tugged him into her, hard. “You can do that? Shimmy up-”

“Kiss me for luck?” A tilt of his head.

She pushed her mouth to his, hard, everything had to be hard and brutal and intense. It had to be. She couldn’t do anything else.

“Damn good luck,” he muttered, scraping his teeth against her bottom lip.

“Hurry.”

“I’m going, baby.” She felt him rip out of her hands, and then he was shoving the barn door shut on her.

Kate turned back to the Jeep, peering in past the passenger’s seat to check on the boys. James was still asleep, and Wyatt had a hand pressed to the glass, leaning forward as if surprised.

“Mommy?”

“Little break, baby,” she whispered. “Here.” She bent down and picked his bunny up off the floor, tucked it into his side. “See if you can rest while Mommy and Daddy-”

Um.

“Hug each other,” she muttered.

Wyatt cuddled into his bunny, but he opened and closed his fist at her as if wanting more. She dug through their bag and found his juice, handed that over to him. Wyatt hummed in pleasure and stuck it in his mouth.

“Juice,” she told him, just as she heard the thump come against the side of the barn. She turned her head and sought the hayloft, traced her eyes down to the ladder. “It’s juice, baby.” Distracted, she stepped away from the Jeep, heard Wyatt repeating juice to himself.

She found the ladder just under the hayloft; it disappeared up through a hole in the floor. She climbed fast, heading for the top, and she crawled out onto the wooden floor.

The hayloft door was open, and his face was peeking through. “Slowpoke.”

She laughed, breathless, her heart crimped in her chest as she got to her knees on the boards. Castle gripped the frame of the hayloft door and pulled himself up inside.

She sank back to her heels, waiting on him, and Castle got to his feet, standing in the open hayloft door, illuminated with all that sunlight. He came forward, but he stopped before he got to her and he sat down cross-legged, hands on his knees.

“Um. Do you still-”

She launched herself at him, knocking him to his back so that he groaned. But his arms banded around her, his knee slide up the outside of her thigh. He rolled them, pressing her into a scattering of high, scratchy at her back. 

“You still,” he husked at her throat.

“Still, still,” she rasped. She gripped his arms and arched into the work of his mouth, panting hard for breath, control. “Take your pants off, let me-”

“Off or just - down enough to make it work-”

“Oh, God,” she groaned, feeling his hand between them fumbling at his fly. “That, do that.”

“I’m going to fuck you hard and then we’ll work on getting clothes off,” he said, shifting to one elbow and unzipping his fly. “Priorities, Beckett.”  
“I’m gonna have to get my pants off,” she growled back.

His eyebrow lifted. “Not exactly.”

\-----

Her ankles were trapped by her pants, constrained. He knew it was dangerous to do that to her, but she was whining his name and writhing up against him, and he couldn’t stop long enough to tear them off.

“Touch me, you have to touch me-”

“Hang on, baby, I’m getting it out,” he growled at her neck. He was hunched to get at his cock, pulling himself out from his boxers to meet her. She clutched his shoulders and nudged her cheek to his temple, her knee shifting as she tried to widen her thighs for him.

“Rick-”

“Here we go,” he panted. Touched her to be sure-

“Oh, God, yes,” she cried. Her hand gripped his shirt and her nails dug into his ribs. “Castle. Need you.”

“I’m here,” he promised, fingers slicking between her legs. She was soaked with arousal, her thighs rubbing against his his hand. “I’ve got you. Let me widen you up, love.”

She cried out, arching into him, and he pushed his fingers inside her. 

It was like she’d been caught in a current. Her body clamped around him and her eyes flared wide, her gasp transmitting straight to his balls.

He couldn’t wait.

Castle rolled on top of her, pressing open her thighs with his greater bulk. His cock was rigid with need, pulsing between them, and he caught her by the back of her neck, tugging her body to his.

“Now, now-” she gasped.

Castle aligned himself with her and thrust, rutting into her body, tunneling up higher and tighter inside her. She cried out, stiffening under him, and he knew he hadn’t gotten her ready enough, that she wasn’t-

“Oh, God,” she moaned. Her hands gripped him, tightened on his ass, and she bumped her hips up to meet him. She had no leverage with her ankles bound by her jeans, but he bore down on top of her, pushing her deeper into the hay.

“Kate,” he growled. He thrust and she was rolling under him, trying to meet him. He withdrew only far enough to pump harder, his cock thrusting all the way home.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh God. I - can feel you-”

Suddenly she cried out, her body a fist around his cock, and she orgasmed with a desperate, clutching rhythm.

He growled her name and began to thrust, working her climax into the dark places of his own soul, forcing her higher, farther, deeper.

Kate sobbed, wrapping an arm around him and burying her teeth in the cords of his neck.

He shouted and his hips bucked. His balls tightened, a fierce claw in his guts, and then he came.

She cried his name and clung to him, their bodies pressing tighter, rubbing frantically, trying to prolong the amazing and terrible connection that tore open their souls and bared them to each other, like one wound sinking into another.

He couldn’t let her go.

\-----

Kate heard herself, the whine in her throat that she couldn’t stop.

Her thighs were bruised, his weight pressed her pelvis into the wooden boards. The hay itched, poked through her shirt and scratched her back. She whimpered and gripped his neck, closed her mouth as she realized she had bit him.

Hard.

He was stroking the side of her face, combing down her hair. “Fuck,” he was mumbling. His breath was hot against her ear. “Fucking hell, I lose my mind with you.”

She laughed, arm caught at his neck so that her chest rubbed his. “Good. Good.”

He groaned and shifted off her hips, moving so that he laid more at her side. “Damn.” His fingers stroked her inside thigh, his mouth kissed her eyelid and then rubbed against her temple as he sighed. “Love you. Sorry - no, not sorry, just, yeah. Just love you.”

She turned into him, rolling half on her side to draw her other arm around his upper shoulder. His hand at her thigh slipped higher and touched her between her legs.

“Oh,” she whispered.

“Now we can go slow,” he hummed. His face was so close to hers that his mouth nudged her mouth, his nose hard against her cheek. “Slow as I like.”

“Oh, God,” she moaned. His fingers. His body hot against her, not hot enough. “Cl-clothes.”

“You want me to undress you first?” 

She whimpered when his hand drifted away, her thighs rubbing together. “Undress me. Yes. I want - you to take everything off.”

His head lifted, his eyes boring into hers. “Everything.”

“And yours,” she said, her voice breaking. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she was trembling, but he teased under the hem of her shirt, his fingers wet where they touched her, where they had been touching her.

“And mine,” he murmured. “Should I strip for you?”

“Yeah. Slow-slowly, like you said.”

His lips twisted into something feral, something that scared her as much as it enflamed, and she gripped his neck and couldn’t stop her hips from bucking into his touch. 

“Slowly,” he murmured, tracing his fingers around her belly button. “I like that.”

“Not - supposed to like it,” she whispered. Her body was on fire in every place he touched, his fingers circling higher.

“Bet we can both like it, baby.”

“All talk, no action-”

He growled and crushed his mouth to hers, as if to silence her, as if to swallow her. She groaned into his kiss and felt his teeth clash at her bottom lip, tasted the sudden tang of blood.

He always just - went for it. Crashed into her. Forced her into orgasm, forced himself inside her, made her want him, want more, want to - to stay.

She tore her mouth away from him. “Strip, Castle.”

He grinned and curled a finger under her bra strap between her breasts, tugged. “Yes, ma’am.”

And then he rose to his knees, staring down at her with that hot terrible look of his, possessing. His cock was already hardening again, rising from the slit in his boxers, that curly dark hair she could see just past his open fly. She lifted her hand and stroked his knee, the material of his dark pants, scratching.

Castle let her look, and then he gripped the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it off over his head.

The work of his arms, the flex of his muscles - the display of his chest and broad shoulders and his chin appearing first, lips and nose, finally his eyes.

His tousled hair, the flop of bangs now made spiky. His ears and the sunlight coming in behind him so that he looked golden.

Her pants were still caught around her ankles with her underwear, her ass scratched by hay, but she spread her fingers along his pants and tugged at the seam. “These.”

“I’m working on it,” he grinned. He flung his shirt off and tossed it onto her face.

She laughed and reached up, slinked it down, inhaling the scent of him in the material. Before she could unveil her face, his hands were gripped around her ankles and tugging off her jeans. She grunted, jerking a knee up before she could help it, but he caught her deftly and dragged her legs back down, ripping her jeans and panties off with them.

Her heart had flipped over in her chest. His hands coasted up her thighs and he roughly cupped her sex, making her cry out.

“Settle down, wild thing.”

She was breathing hard, heart pounding, and her palms were suddenly sweating. The hayloft was closing down on her, her eyes felt dry and tight and-

“I said, settle down, Beckett.” He leaned in over her, his legs pressing into hers. His chest almost touching hers, his elbows digging into the wood beside her head. His lips touched between her eyes. “I’m undressing you this time, baby. And you’re gonna have to take it.”

She nodded, feeling stupid, feeling too hot, too frustrated. His fingers flexed between her legs and she whimpered.

“You’re freaking out, and I can tell,” he husked. “I won’t let you. Not right now. Not when I want to fuck you slowly.” His fingers curled.

She whined, hips snapping into his hand, riding that exquisite way he touched her. She gripped his bare shoulders, her nails digging into his skin, but he only worked her harder.

She couldn’t-

Oh, oh, she could-

She cried out as she came apart, a nasty orgasm that was over all too quickly, leaving her weak and dizzy, her head spinning and her eyes closed.

“Open those eyes, beautiful.” His fingers slid through her folds and streaked her wetness against her thigh. “Watch me.”

Her eyes slid open.

She saw him above her. She saw him rise up once more, this time to his feet, full height in the sun, and then he began to take off his pants.

\-----

Castle was naked, and the sun was warm on his back, felt good. Felt strong. 

He bent over her and grabbed her by her hands. “On your feet, sweetheart.”

She stood with him, stumbling a little, her eyes locked on his in a way that was both erotic and somehow pleading. The edge of desperation, and not the good kind.

“Time to take this off,” he told her. 

She dropped her hands from his arms when he moved to the hem of her t-shirt, her arms heavy and bumping into him. He skimmed two fingers along her belly and she shuddered, her eyes loosing from his and drifting.

He circled her belly button, and came up to the front clasp of her bra. “Kate, watch me, baby.” 

Her eyes tracked to his, her lashes falling and then rising again.

He pulled her shirt up over her head and she gasped, laughing a little, that startled sound that seemed to be pulled up out of her chest. He dropped her shirt to the barn floor and cupped the back of her head, made her look at him.

“This bra is one of my favorites.”

She laughed again, and this time her smile was sweet. A little shy, something of her coming back to him. “Yeah? You bought it, you bastard.”

He grinned and dipped his head to kiss her smart mouth, sucking on her bottom lip, that place he’d bruised, tasting the split. “I did. Sneaked it into the bag when I bought your underwear. Remember me buying your underwear?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Her cheek knocked against his. “Underwear you already took off me. You gonna do the bra now too?”

“Or I could push it up like this.” He cupped under her breasts and pushed the material up, making her nipples hard as he chafed them. She grunted and came up on her toes, her hands gripping his biceps. “You like that?”

“Like - like you.”

He grinned and kissed her again for that, the honesty of her breathlessness and the way her body reacted to his. He cupped her breasts under the bra and rubbed his thumbs over her nipples until she mewled like a wolf cub.

“You’re sexy as hell, sweetheart.”

“And you’re driving me crazy.”

“Best kind of crazy,” he murmured. She stiffened and he silently cursed his stupid mouth, kissed her hard between her eyes. “Not like that. Meant only that fucking is the best way to solve our problems.”

She nudged his mouth away, her head turning, but just when he thought she was pulling away from him, she reached between them and gripped his cock.

“F-fuck,” he grunted.

Her hand squeezed and then released him only to trace lightly back to his balls and cup them. “Play with you like you play with me.”

“Ah, fuck. Fuck, Kate, your hand is like fire.”

She kissed him then, her mouth on his, her tongue stroking against him as she kneaded his balls. Kneaded his balls so that his fucking legs went weak and his groan pulled out of him.

She slid her legs over his thigh and rubbed herself against his cock as she fondled him.

“Kate!” He gripped her shoulders and tried to make her - make her - he had no idea; she just had to stop. “Kate, fuck, I’m gonna fucking come if you don’t-”

Too late.

He groaned and lurched into her, hips pumping as she rubbed against him, as she fucking pulled his guts out of his balls-

He climaxed in a rush, barking her name and orgasming across her thigh, and she clutched the back of his neck and held him to her.

\-----


	10. Chapter 10

He was damp with sweat and trembling before her, against her, and she liked that a lot. She felt good with him staggering and clutching, heavy and listing into her like she was the only thing that could hold him up.

She kissed the side of his face, her lips rubbing against the scruff that had already grown in. Her nose was abraded by him, his skin hot with the sun at his back, or maybe just his natural state. He was always hot, and not just body heat, but - yeah - he was the most fucking beautiful man she had ever seen.

Beautiful man.

“Even your come is hot,” she murmured at his jaw.

Castle croaked on a laugh and gripped the back of her neck, pressed his laugh into her mouth so that she was gulping and swallowing sound, flushed again, wanting again.

The fingers of his free hand swiped at the inside of her thigh. “My come is hot? Hopefully not scalding.”

She opened her mouth against his cheek and then - and then she bit his cheekbone. “Not scalding. I meant - it’s hot when you come. I thought before it was - just gross. But you’re hot and you want - want me-”

“I fucking want you so damn bad.”

She shivered and found herself winding around him, her arm at his neck and her fingers in his hair and her legs tangled with his. He skimmed his own come from her thigh and brought his hand up, touching her lips.

She stared at him, head jerking back, and a moment’s indecision warred on his face, his fingers curling into his palm.

“No, I-” She ducked forward and swallowed two of his knuckles, licking the hard edges where skin sheathed bone. He grunted and she scraped her teeth, probed his fist with her tongue until she tasted him.

“Fuck, baby,” he husked. His hand at her neck gripped harder, and she licked the curve of his finger down and then bit the meat of his thumb. “Ah, fuck, how are you so damn hot?”

She lifted her eyes to his and popped lewdly off his fingers with a last swirl of her tongue. “Good teacher.”

His face went dark. Castle unfurled his wet hand and grabbed her by her hip. She realized, suddenly, that they were most definitely naked, skin against skin, a little sticky, a little hot, the way skin could catch and hold as if it didn’t want to let go.

“Shall I begin another lesson?” he said. His mouth was against her ear so that his lips just barely brushed her skin.

“I really love all my classes,” she murmured, feeling so hot, so burning with it, that she was saying whatever came to her tongue, not even bothering with her mouth. “Especially this one professor.”

“This one professor,” he echoed. His wet hand planted hard at her lower back and brought her closer. 

“Oh, what the hell,” she mumbled. “It’s you. You’re my only professor.”

His hand caught the back of her head, a fist in her hair, and she thought she heard him gasp. “I wish I could say the same but you’re my only student,” he rushed out. “Does that count? You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to teach. The only one I’ve been able to touch like this and - and watch bloom.”

“If you fucking say you deflowered me, Richard Castle, I will leave you standing here with this towering erection and let you work one out onto the hay.”

He laughed.

She slapped his back and he just laughed harder, harder, like it was the best joke he’d heard, and she hadn’t been joking at all.

“I only meant that you take direction so well, sweetheart.”

And then Castle was slow-dancing her back towards that aforementioned pile of hay, bumping his hips into hers until she was standing barefoot on its scratchy surface. She was only a little pissed at him really, so when he released her and dropped down to the nest of hay and rough sacks, she followed.

She sat in his lap because his stomach was always hard abs, and she couldn’t help squeezing her knees at his hips. Castle framed her back with his hands and rubbed up and down, catching sweat and flicking away bits of hay. She made a face and he ran his fingers through her hair, dislodging more bits of hay.

“You look beautiful,” he said softly. 

“Baby, I thought you were going to teach me a lesson.”

His grin flashed across his eyes and then she heard what she’d said and grinned back.

“So?” she said, nudging his hips with her knees and rocking into him. Little harder so that he grunted and caught her around the waist.

“So what?”

“So what’s my lesson. Or what am I being punished for?” She wriggled her eyebrows at him and traced little stupid designs on his chest. But it seemed to work for him; his skin flinched every time.

“I... can’t think of a single thing to punish you for,” he said, his voice rough.

“Oh, no?” She traced the hard ripple of his abdominal muscles and watched him react to her. “I can think of a few things just today.”

“I’ve already punished you for the big one,” he said, his voice dark now, as dark as his eyes had been when she’d said he was a good teacher. Her supposed innocence and her crazy - that’s what made him hot?

“You did,” she said, swallowing. “You have, but I deserve-”

“You deserve the world,” he said, and then his mouth crashed against hers and drank her down. She moaned into his kiss, feeling sucked dry and set on fire, every part of her kindling.

His fingers unwound from her hair and coasted straight down her back to her thighs, gripping hard, kneading. She grunted when he found her open sex, her lashes catching his cheek, his thumbs catching her clit.

“Fuck me,” she moaned. “I can’t - I can’t - fuck me harder than this.”

His thumb swiped at her folds and gathered her wetness, his own, pushed it back inside her. She gasped and jerked into him, felt his fingers at her ass where he caressed and teased, where everything was shocking and arousing and strange and beautiful, just how he played her, what he taught her.

“I want you,” she moaned. “I just want you, I want-”

“Let me do this first,” he husked. His mouth painted her cheek and came to her lips and she groaned, her skin flushed, her skin burning. He was making her hot, so dizzy with it that she bowed backwards and offered herself up to him.

His mouth came down to her breasts and suckled, and she cried out, felt her milk letting down. So good, so fucking good to have him making her full, he made her so full, and she cried out when fingers penetrated her ass.

He worked his hand in both directions, and she gasped, her body jerking upright and curling in as if to get away from him, but she never wanted away, never.

He worked his fingers and thumb inside her both places and suckled at her breast, biting her nipple to widen the flow of milk. 

“Oh, God, Castle!”

He growled and flicked his tongue across her as he released, came to her other breast and bit down immediately. She cried out, but he was so damn good at drawing the milk from her that he had the rhythm immediately, even as she writhed on his hand.

“Please,” she whimpered. “Please.”

He rubbed his thumb and finger together inside her and she keened, bursting into orgasm around the terrible work of his hand. Her cheek crashed into his cheek, curling around him, so that she saw stars, beautiful and terrifying stars, the whole universe closing down into darkness before lighting up just like that.

“There we go, baby, there we go, there we go-”

She whimpered and cried his name, tears slicking her cheeks, cried his name against his skin as he cradled her.

His fingers slid out of her, but in the next second, his cock was replacing his thumb, pushing inside her sex and filling her again. Filling her up so full.

So full.

“Oh, please,” she whispered, insensible with the aftereffects of her orgasm, her body trembling at the way his skin melted to her skin. “Oh, please, Rick. Need you, need you like this.”

“First lesson,” he husked, his mouth opening at her jaw. “Are you listening? Need your complete attention.”

“Ye-yes,” she gasped.

“You can take notes later, but right now, sweetheart, you need to just listen.”

“I am,” she whined. “I’m listening.”

His cock throbbed inside her, his body like iron as he kept her there with him, kept her seated on him.

“First lesson. You need me.”

She whimpered, bowing forward, trying to take in more of him, more of him.

“Recite it back to me, baby. So I know you have it straight.”

“You need me,” she whispered. And then blushed, cringing as she heard what she’d said-

His hands came to her jaw and caught it, lifted her head. His eyes were so blue. “Yes,” he said. His voice held strength to it, even in the quiet. “I need you.”

She blushed deeper and his thumb touched her lips.

“I need you,” he said. “Recite it, repeat it, baby, so I know you know-”

“I need you,” she choked out, her whole body trembling. Trembling around his cock inside her.

“Yes,” he hissed. “That. That.” And then he caught her hips and began to fuck her.

\-----

She groaned and bowed forward over the insistent drive of his thrusts. His thumb pushed against her tongue, and her teeth gnawed his knuckle, heedless to anything other the force of him inside her.

She couldn’t speak if she wanted to, but she was beyond words. Her knees were pulled up so that she could grind down against his pelvis as he fucked her, as she fucked him, this mutual thing that was intense momentum and urgency. When he gripped her jaw and dug his fingers in under the bone, her throat was suddenly constricted and her major artery pulsied too hot, too hard. Her tongue worked at his thumb and he cursed her name, cursed her with a viciousness that made her bear down against him.

“You better fucking come for me,” he snarled at her. “Damn it, woman, you better come.”

“Can’t-” She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t do anything more than grind and grind and grind, splitting herself open at the root of his cock.

“I’m not coming without you, damn it.”

She cried out, her body rearranged inside by the force of him, how he fucked her, God, how he fucked her clean out.

Castle jerked her head towards him with his grip and she choked, eyes flaring open to find his nose against hers, their foreheads crushed together.

“I know you’ve already come, but I want one more. I want one more from you to prove you need me like I need you. Prove it. Prove-”

She keened, needing him so badly, curled in over the force of his cock, but he pulled her upright the back of her neck. Suddenly she was being turned, his hands hot on her hips, her mouth empty without him.

“Turn around,” he snarled. “You seemed to like this-”

She fumbled with her knee against his thigh, had to drop forward, her hands planting one on his shin and one between his legs. But when she peeled her breasts away from his thigh, Castle pushed her back down.

“What-” she panted.

“Stay. This will be good. Hang on, baby, stay just like this. Lesson number thirty-hundred, I don’t fucking know how many different fucking positions we’ve done, but I promise you, you are going to wail.”

“Just fuck me,” she snarled, snapping back at him. He slapped her thigh and she jolted, but her was arranging her on her hands and knees and coming up to his knees himself.

And then his cock was right there, between her thighs, thick and hot and slick with her own juices. Castle stroked lightly at her ass and she shuddered, feeling the intense urge for his nails scoring down the backs of her thighs.

But instead, he impaled her with his cock.

She shouted, dropping down to her elbows and burying her face in her forearm. Castle didn’t wait for her to adjust, just started fucking her hard again. This time, he had all the power, all the leverage, and she felt him going so much deeper, so much harder. She was being split in half by his massive cock, and her sex burned where it stretched around him.

With one arm laid over her spine and his fingers around the back of her neck, he forced his own rhythm, pumping hard into her hips. She felt his other hand caressing her swinging breasts, like rubbing his hand in a wind chime, and she moaned.

“Please,” she begged him. “Please. Please-”

Castle laid his body over hers, his hips jarring, his cock fucking her deep and wide, his hand curled around her throat now, shoving her down on him.

Suddenly she was shaking, she was trembling all over and her body wouldn’t hold them up. She was collapsing, and Castle was on top of her, and his cock rutting into her and she screamed his name and shattered with an orgasm so fierce it blacked out her sky.

\-----

She was groaning at first when he got his act together and rolled them into the hay (he wanted, now, suddenly, to see how many of those euphemisms they could literally make happen), and when she was liquid heat against his skin, tucked into his side and tangled, she wasn't groaning any longer, just laughing.

"What's so funny?" he said, felt like a sigh as he curled on his side to keep her warm. She was as nuzzling as an animal seeking heat, and he draped his thigh over both of hers to keep her. "Laughing."

"Just - no, I understand now."

"What?" He petted her hair down from his face and nudged his chin into her temple. "What do you-"

"Why the world is so overpopulated. Why people keep having babies they don't want. Fuck. It'sgood when it's good. It's so damn good. I want to do this all the time."

He chuckled and combed his fingers through the tangled knots of her hair, pulling hay from their strands and twirling it in the sunlight before letting it go. She was kitten-like at his chest, scratching her nails against his sternum and shifting a thigh higher, wriggling closer and pushing her hair off her face. All movement and humming pleasure until the moment she slumped in and stopped.

Absolutely still. 

He titled his head down to his chin and caught a glimpse of her face.

She was asleep, mid-laugh it seemed, her lips parted and halfway curled up. 

He replaced his hand at the curve of her skull and protected her sleep, keeping his body between hers and the open door, keeping her warm.

Keeping her.

\-----

They dressed each other, or tried to anyway, tried to help, tried to tug clothes where they belonged, fix seams on shoulders, button pants. His hands were dexterous but so wide, and he got distracted by the lace of her panties, kept sliding his fingers under the leg and rubbing back and forth so that she was swaying on her feet.

When clothes had come back on, for the most part, and they could stop touching each other to take them back off again, for the most part, they climbed back down the ladder to the barn below.

Kate opened the back door on the passenger side and found both boys asleep in their carseats, mouths open and cheeks smushed to the sides. She coasted two fingers down Wyatt's forehead and turned back to Castle.

"We could let them sleep?"

"And do what?" he said, but he looked interested. His fingers caught the belt loops of her jeans and hauled her slowly in. His lips grazed hers. "You wanna make out with me?"

"We kinda do everything backwards, don't we?"

"Hm?" His mouth was ghosting her cheek.

"I had your babies before I even met you. We just fucked upstairs but now you want to kiss me and maybe get to third base?"

He grunted, something like a laugh in his throat that had gotten swallowed back. "You didn't exactly have any say in the babies, and I'm grateful for any base I find."

"I love my babies," she whispered.

"I know you do. You're an amazing woman. And I don't need to get to third base because kissing you is intoxicating."

She shivered as his mouth touched hers. He pressed her back against the car until her spine was straightened by the frame of the front door, her bones pulled into place. She embraced him, pressing them chest to chest, and his tongue nudged apart her lips.

He was hot, and slow, his mouth lazy as he explored hers. His fingers had come up to caress her throat, little strokes and touches, and she was clenching his shirt to hold on. To keep standing under the barrage of sensation. 

She loved the composition of him, hard planes and soft places, the curve where bones disappeared under muscle, the give of his skin and the resistance of his structure. She loved how his tongue ran over the place on her lip where she kept tugging away the skin, how he soothed at first but then irritated until it stung. How he caressed her only to make her raw.

With her back against the Jeep, holding her up, it allowed him to do interesting things with his hands. Like skim his fingers down the collar of her shirt and play with her clavicles. Like trace designs on her flank where he knew the line of her panties would be. Like press both of his thumbs into her belly button and tease her with the light touch of his spreading fingers.

She was already breathless, and now he was making her insensible. If she felt like this after everything they'd done in the hayloft, after being swamped with orgasms so that her whole body refused to keep her standing, then what happened to her in a year? What happened in a month, or six months, or when she was as old as him and still here?

What happened to her?

His mouth pulled her apart so that she could put herself back together. He devastated. She wanted to be broken down to her smallest and most insignificant parts so that she could arrange her own psyche how she wanted, how it best fit, and not the way terror and horror had shaped her.

He was going to destroy her. She was going to build herself back more.

Castle held her face in his hands and came away, his eyes dark and as wild as she felt inside. "Third base might be necessary at this point."

"Wh-"

"I need to make you come," he husked. "Let me press my fingers inside you-"

"Okay," she got out, shivering. "Yes." It might take a long time, his fingers might set her on fire but she wouldn't be consumed. Not this far down, not with all of her energy and drive sucked out of her by the force of his body in that hayloft.

She gasped when he unbuttoned her jeans, electric current jolting between them just that suddenly.

His hand didn't slip inside, but he forced his way in, her thighs widening to accept him, give him room he was going to take anyway. 

And then he was touching her, and she was riding higher, and burning brighter, and her whole being was going up in the works.

She bowed forward, her forehead catching on his cheek, and breathed into the hot space between them. He was touching her, he was touching her so that she was incendiary.

"I love..." she gasped.

His fingers pushed inside her.

"I love this," she groaned.

"I love you too."

\-----

When she was draped against his arm and giving those hitched-breath sighs, he realized she was trying to explain to him what she meant, what she felt. He realized she was trying to apologize and give an excuse and he didn't want that.

"You know that I want - you to be happy, good things for you because - you know I think you're beautiful, and I - my whole body lights up when you-"

"Stop," he whispered, cupping the back of her head. "Stop, honey."

"But it's not - exactly fair, and I don't mean to use you-"

"Use away," he murmured. His lips skated her cheek. "You leave the words to me, Kate. Will you do that?"

"Do... what?"

"Let me say the things that need to be said, that ought to be said between us. You don't need to say a thing." He pressed his thumb to her throat and felt it bob as she swallowed, felt the thump of her pulse. "You know there's - this connection we have. And when I can touch you, it's so much stronger. Like you've crawled inside my skin and your heart is pressed against my heart and every beat yours takes is a beat mine gets forced into taking as well."

"Is that - good? I think that's good."

"I think it's beautiful," he sighed. "It gives my heart its rhythm. But it means I'm going to feel you like you're inside me, Kate." He took her hand from between them and dragged her knuckles up over his groin to his abdominal muscles, letting her feel the ripple that went through him. "I don't know everything. I can't read your mind. But something happens when we touch. Some... third thing is created between us and that - that I feel - that is as known to me as my own weapon."

"Yeah," she breathed, her pulse faltering under his fingers as she hitched and crowded closer. "A - weapon. A tool. My - knife." She shivered and drew an arm around his neck. "You're my knife."

How his chest collapsed in to hear it like that, to hear her need and her desperation against the relief of her hope now. She had a knife; she had them. Whatever this third thing was, she had it when she needed escape, or to fight, or comfort. She had that now too, and he was so fucking grateful she felt it too.

He kissed her lips roughly, pulled back to see her face. "I'm your deadliest knife, sweetheart." He kissed her again, smelling her arousal on his fingers where he had hold of her jaw. "Leave the words to me to be said. Because you are my right hand, blade or bullet, doesn't matter. You are it."

She nodded, hiding her face into his neck and drawing her arms tighter around him. He buttoned her jeans and tried to pull her shirt straight, but he let the feel of her dry on his fingers, wanting to have the scent for later.

"I want to ride a horse," she said roughly.

He grinned. "Noble goal. There's a horse breeder about twenty miles from our place."

"Mm."

"It's been a few years since I've ridden. I'd like to go too."

She startled and jerked upright. "I meant for - us to both go. I don't want - I don't know how to..."

"Only meant it's a good idea. And fun. It can be fun, sweetheart."

She nodded, her eyes shying to the side. But then something seemed to catch hold of her and she straightened herself up. She was still in the shelter of his arms, but she seemed to draw a reserve into herself, making her strong again, confident. Or confident enough.

"I want to see the wolf puppy first. Our wolf. A horse wouldn't like to smell him on me, so it might have to wait."

"You're right," he said softly. "I had - almost forgotten about Wolf."

"He's being tamed? Or taught to know, taught how to be civilized. I guess that's the best we can do, isn't it? And hope he doesn't break for the wilds too often."

"I think that's entirely enough," he whispered. "Let him be wild if he has to. He is wild. I want him to be himself, not come to heel like a dog. I want him to live with us in comfort, because that's an easier life than hunting and being hunted. But I know he's not made for us. We just get to keep him a while."

She nodded, her teeth pulling at her lip. "I want to try though. Try to keep him."

"Of course, baby." He cupped her face and pulled that lip free of her teeth, kissed her to worry it himself, taste the tang of blood like sweat. "I know we just stopped, but. Will you fuck me one time before we go? I want to watch your face in the darkness as you move on top of me."

Her eyes searched his for a moment. "I'd rather see you in the light. Watch your face with the sun on it. If I put my back to the hayloft door, it'll throw my face in shadow and-"

"Yeah, that's better, light and dark, dark and light. That's what this is anyway."

She lifted on her toes and kissed him, a sweet thing though hardly innocent. "Come back upstairs with me. We'll see how slow we can take it."

\-----

She loved watching his face as he undressed her once more. Loved touching his skin and skimming over his hips as she took his boxers down. Loved the way he caught her hair in his fist when she went to her knees before him and lightly kissed the flex of his thigh.

He didn’t draw her up, he just came to his knees with her and kissed her mouth. And then her eyelid where her eyes had closed and it fluttered in her belly. When he shifted away, she opened them again and found him caressing her face with his fingers and his gaze as well, as if the shadows made her richer somehow.

He was in the full sun, though her own shadow fell across the slant of his ribs, his shoulder. He was as blue-eyed as the sky, and she cupped his face and leaned in, rubbed her lips against his cheekbone where it peaked.

His hands gripped the backs of her thighs and kneaded, fingers strong, hitting those deep spots in her glutes that made her body tilt into his. She pushed on his shoulders and he went, straight down so that his abs flexed and went taut, keeping his descent backwards perfectly smooth.

She lifted an eyebrow and scratched her fingers at his hard stomach.

He huffed, an almost laugh, and eased back on his elbows, shifted his knees up to slide his feet between her legs. She settled onto his lap and rubbed his stomach again. “You’re harder here than-”

“Better not.” He growled and caught her wrist, shifting to grab her so that she nearly came unseated. “Harder here than where.”

She bit her lip and tried not to grin, slowly shook her head. “Nooo. Nowhere.”

“Damn straight, woman.”

She flipped her wrist to get rid of his grip, leaned in and shoved on his shoulders. “On your back, baby. I can already feel you hard between my legs.”

He grinned and settled, his hands loose on her hips, and she came up on her knees to find him. He was - as she had said - thick and impressive already, and as she rose, so did he, freed from the trap of her body. She took hold of him and watched his eyes flicker with that instinct to fuck, his jaw tensing. He dug his thumbs into her hips and she slid his cock along her sex, coating them both, getting him slick with her.

It was erotic just how much she knew - how to position her hips, how thick he was, how she had to angle her pelvis forward so that he pushed up against that resistance and then popped-

inside.

Oh, God.

So good. So good. How wide he opened her, how her body trembled to feel the invasion of him.

“Come on, baby,” he husked. “Rock-”

“I know,” she growled, opening her eyes to see him. “I know exactly what to do to you, Castle.”

His eyes locked on hers. “Then go wild.”

She laughed, tilting her head. “Wild wasn’t what I had in mind. Slow and painful.” She lifted back up on her knees so that his cock began to withdraw, leaving her, sliding right out again.

“Yes, that,” he growled, hands tugging her hips. “You’re already making my jaw hurt.”

“Your... jaw?”

“Clenching my teeth trying to restrain myself.”

“Don’t really like it when you restrain yourself, baby. Let’s see what we can do to fix that.”

Castle growled, his hip-tugging growing a little more fierce, but she planted a hand on his chest and kept her control. His cock was thicker, if that was possible, and she squeezed him at the root, as she’d figured out, and he stuttered out a breath and let his head fall back to the hayloft floor.

He was dazzled with sunlight, golden like the hay, and when she swiveled her hips, he whined and blinked so fast his eyelashes were golden too.

“Do - do that again,” he rasped.

She hummed, as if she had to think about it, but she definitely wanted to do that again. And she did, letting his cock slide through the lips of her sex, back and forth, around and around and-

“Fuck,” he shouted, hips bucking hard under her. She reflexively tightened her grip and he groaned, long and loud, and then he was scrabbling at her hips and begging her, pleading fast and weak and urgently, and she couldn’t stop herself.

She wanted him so badly. She wanted what he wanted, which was to be fucked by her; she wanted that, that that that-

Castle groaned when the head of his cock pressed inside her. Her thighs were trembling, her whole body was trembling, but she worked her hips side to side to push him deeper.

“Ah, fuck. Ah, fuck, fuck.”

“Yes,” she gasped, leaning in over him. She released the base of his cock to plant her hands at his stomach, to ride him, but he moaned, terrible and needy, thrashing his head.

“I’m gonna come. Oh, fuck. I can’t hold back. Kate. I can’t-”

“Come,” she husked, bucking her hips into his.

He roared and drove up into her, his cock penetrating so deeply that she gasped, throwing her head back and arching. He was so far up inside her - he was so hard and thick - he was so thick-

Castle shouted. His orgasm charged through her insides, lit her up so that she was crackling and electric, her body burning in his flame.

He rutted into her with every pump if his climax, and even though she hadn’t been looking for it, she felt her climax sparkle and shimmer, the rain of bliss falling over her until she was gasping and numb.

Kate collapsed on top of him and closed her eyes, let herself drift to the sensation of his cock twitching and softening. Like Jekyll and Hyde.

\-----


	11. Chapter 11

He stroked his fingers down her spine, trailing through sweat and the longer tendrils of her hair. She was warm on top of him, her cheek turned to his chest so that he felt her breathing against him, her ribs pressing into his. She wasn’t asleep, she just seemed to be - here with him.

Just with him.

He combed through her hair, arranging it over one shoulder and off her face. She wrinkled her nose and rubbed it into his shoulder, and he gathered the strands of her hair off her neck so that he could scratch at her scalp.

“Mm, good,” she mumbled.

“Good,” he whispered, unwilling to disturb whatever peace they’d found. 

She pulled in an arm and gave one of those juddering breaths as if she’d just come off a crying jag. The release of emotion. He coasted his free hand along her tricep and down to her elbow, squeezing gently. Her skin was warm, but beginning to cool.

He would have to move them too soon to keep her from getting chilled. Though maybe she didn’t care, maybe she liked it. He needed to start asking questions rather than assuming.

“What’s your favorite season?”

“What?” she mumbled, shifting as if to lift her head. He cupped her skull and it must have weighed her down, because she didn’t move. “What’s my - mm, summer.”

“Yeah?”

“Warm. I like to be warm and - sweaty. Just - warm.”

“You like to be sweaty?” he grinned, fingers touching her back. The sweat had dried though.

She giggled, but pressed her face to his chest and spoke against his sternum. “Yeah, especially - like this. From this.”

“Right here,” he murmured, tracing the small of her back and the rise of her ass. “Sweat, just a little. Damp. And then the backs of your knees. Between your breasts. I like tasting the salt with the milk when I have my mouth on you.”

“F-fuck,” she whispered, shivering.

“Mm, that.” He smiled and nuzzled the top of her head, unable to see her face. She moved again and laid her cheek to his shoulder once more, and now he saw the dark lines of her eyebrows, the fringe of her lashes, the slope of her nose.

He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, how he loved the sweat and the places it collected, how he loved when she sucked on his fingers for his own taste, how her excitement about having sex made him restless and aching for it - and so much more. 

Only he was learning that straight out telling her was never the way. She didn’t hold in his words, couldn’t seem to hold them. Like their power diminished over time, or had a short half-life. 

“What happens tomorrow?” she said.

“We’ll visit Wolf once the boys are up. I don’t know if they’re allowed to see him. But you and I can.”

Her fingers spread out at his ribs. “I don’t - we don’t have to. I pushed-”

“Of course we have to. Pup was on our land when he got trapped.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to-”

“It’s not about having to. I don’t have to do shit. Having Black for a father means I’m conveniently free of a conscience.”

She laughed, or well, close enough, kind of, and sighed, her fingers rubbing at his ribs. “Wolf is going to be a hassle, going in and out of town for the training, and trying to get him used to us. And used to the boys, being handled. They don’t know how to be gentle-”

“So?”

She went silent.

Castle rubbed her back and kissed her hard on the forehead. “Clothes, I think. Your skin is getting chilled, love.”

“I’m okay.”

“Yeah? Just a little while then. And you know, if you don’t want to go to the hassle, you don’t have to do it. I can do it myself.”

“That’s - not what I meant,” she mumbled.

“Okay. So. Huh. I guess I don’t get it.”

“It’s a hassle for you, Castle.”

“The wolf? Nah. Wolf’s fine. Give me a complex project. Brains and brawn combined, you know?”

“What does that mean?” she said quietly.

“Wrestle him down - requires physical skill, not just stamina and endurance but also patience. The strength to stick it out. I like things that test me like that. What my job is, really.”

“A spy,” she whispered.

“An assassin, baby, more like. Complex plans to eliminate a target. That’s what my father had me doing. But then my job with the CIA, the day in and day out stuff, that was brains.”

“Like - analyzing things and maps and... what?”

He tried to laugh, afraid she’d go silent again. “Missions. I orchestrate everything for my sector - who goes where and does what. I put all the pieces on the board and I have them interact to accomplish larger, bigger goals. We need information out of a diplomat in Cairo, then I have to figure out how best to get it. Con him, seduce him, ask him, flip him, torture him-”

“Tor-torture him.”

He let out a long sigh and wished he hadn’t said it. “I’m afraid so. Sometimes.”

“Oh.”

“But for the immediate future, we’ll be doing things your way, you know. Rounding up the last of the project. Cleaning out the CIA and the Department of Defense.”

“My way.”

“If it can be avoided. No killing. No torture. Just - friendly persuasion. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she whispered. She shivered again and lifted her head from his chest, studied his eyes for a moment. He hoped she saw the truth in him. What he would do for her. She shivered again and pushed off his chest. “Yeah. Clothes.”

He laughed, grinned at her as he sat up as well. “Clothes. Come on. We’ll get warm.”

\----- 

This time Castle shimmied back down from the hayloft to lift the bar from the barn doors while Kate climbed down. She heard the groan of wood when Castle must have reached the doors, and no sooner had she approached the car than there was sunlight spilling inside. When she got the Jeep to check on the boys, Castle was moving through the dappled light to reach her side.

Wyatt was awake when she opened the back door. He gave them sleepy smiles and lifted his arms for her.

"Just a hug," she whispered, trying not to wake James. "We're not getting out, we're about to get back on the road, baby." She kissed his neck and cupped the back of his head, pressing her cheek to his in an embrace. He didn't complain, just gave her an open-mouthed thing that might have been a kiss in return.

"James asleep?" Castle said, a hand on the door to keep it from closing on her. 

She nodded and detached from Wyatt, glancing over at James in his seat. His face was still mashed against the side, hair sticking up on his forehead from sleep-sweat. She didn't reach for him, afraid her touch would wake him prematurely; she just backed out and let Castle close the door.

"Ready to hit the road?" he said, that easy stance, pleased smile. How natural it all was for him. Life.

"Yeah, ready. Let's get going." No need to drag this day out any longer than they already had.

"Uh." Castle rubbed his jaw. "I just thought. When was the last time we changed their diapers? Because..."

"I did it at the rest stop," she said, waving him off. "Like - well, four or five hours ago now. But they're fine."

"Oh, good," he said, breath rushing out. "I've been trying to keep track but I forgot. Sorry."

"It's okay, Castle. It's not a perfect system." Neither of them had ever been full time parents before. It wasn't like she had expectations; she had zero expectations.

His shoulders hunched. "I know that it's not... but they won't complain, you know? Kids ought to be screeching, sitting in a wet diaper too long. But not them. They'd take it. Like you." He rubbed a hand down his face and she felt her own throat closing up. "They'd just take it, and I'd never know that I was being bad for them, but I would be. Not just uncomfortable, it can irritate their skin and cause a rash and... and that kills me."

She stepped into him, her body colliding with his, clutching the back of shirt with her fists.

"I'm sorry," he rasped. "I don't know why I'm losing it."

"It's okay."

"And I know they're like me, so probably no rash or - well - just it would heal up before we even knew probably. I don't know. It's stupid to worry about a wet diaper when things are so-"

"So much better than they've ever been. In their whole lives," she whispered. "I know."

"Oh. I meant. God." His arms banded around her. "I meant things are so up in the air right now. It's not that important. But. Yeah, better than it's ever been. Damn."

"That's a good thing, you know. Because of you-"

"Because of you."

She shrugged and he sighed, holding her tighter. "Alright, I'm done now. I'm done. No more tight feeling in my chest. Let's drive. Let's go."

"Yeah, let's just drive."

He kissed her roughly and stepped away, but she felt the way his eyes lingered, burning. 

But it was. It was better than it had ever been.

\-----

He was sitting in the driver’s seat about to turn the ignition when it occurred to him that he never fucking asked.

She was an adult with two children, and they had just fucked in a hayloft, first at her instigation and then at his, and yet he still looked at her and saw the woman in the cage, trapped by a complex - physical and mental - like she wasn’t finally out of there.

“You want to drive?” he said, turning eagerly towards her. “Let me sit in the passenger seat and gaze adoringly at our kids for a while.”

She blushed and turned her head away from the backseat, scrubbed her hands over her cheeks.

“It’s cute,” he said. “I love that you love our kids. Our kids - even saying it gives me a fucking hard on.”

“Say... that they’re ours?” But as soon as the possessive pronoun left her mouth, she shivered and glanced behind her to the boys. “Yeah, I... it’s more than just mine or yours, isn’t it? I don’t - know exactly what. But there’s more.”

“Hell, yeah, there’s more. We did that together. I mean - well, without either of our consents, but we still made those two boys in a purely genetic way. They are ours.”

“And soon enough - more than that,” she said quietly. “Already, they mimic you, they parrot your words. Wyatt walks around after you, trying to be just like you. And James is - I can see him opening his guarded little heart to you, giving you a piece at a time, trusting you with it. You never let him down.”

He hoped - somewhere in there - she was talking about herself too. Because he’d been kinda sorta talking about her, about how there was more to this than just two people stuck together, but how they were creating something here, in the sex but in the spaces in between the sex too.

“I can see you in them,” he said then. The car was still turned off, the barn doors wide open. He had to get them out of here fairly quickly, and yet he just sat here, staring into the shadows and hoping she could carry his words in her heart until a time where she could believe them fully. “James and Wyatt both press their cheeks into mine to say I love you. You do that.” To them, but to him as well. He didn’t say that though. “And James is careful with things, studying them first in his quiet way, just like you - get an assessment, know what he’s up against. And then when he’s confronted with a problem, and he has his information, he just goes. He throws himself down the stairs, he runs across the yard, he goes first through the door. He’s the lead, and he takes care of his brother. And he learned that from you.”

“We - were buddies,” Kate said. 

He stole a look at her, but she was staring into the darkness as well. He said nothing, not wanting to break the spell, hoping she would keep going.

And after a moment, she did. “I talked to him,” she murmured. “We talked. He was - someone all mine. Even though it scared the shit out of me, what had happened without - my knowing. Those hands on me I could imagine all too well. But I had James, and I knew him, I knew.”

“When you were pregnant.”

“Mm.” She leaned her head back, closed her eyes. “He was mine, and I loved him, and when he was born and he was - two. I just picked one, you know? But I knew. I knew which one was James, the one who had been listening to me all along, the one who would survive.”

Survive? 

She swallowed and lifted her head again, opened her eyes. She turned slowly in her seat and glanced behind them. Wyatt was kicking his feet against his car seat and chewing on a ring Carrie had stuck in the fridge at the hotel, like a chew toy. He beamed at Kate when she looked at him, and Kate wriggled her fingers his way and turned back around.

“I’ll drive,” she said. “I want to. I need practice. I - used to have a motorcycle. Bought it with money I saved up. I just rode and rode, city streets at night in the darkness. My parents - God. They hated it.”

He couldn’t believe the amount of detail she was coming out with, the stories, the background moments and snapshots. 

“I bet they did. How old were you?”

“Seventeen.” A smile flirted with her lips but fell away. She sighed and covered her mouth with a hand, worried her bottom lip with her thumb. “That’s why I picked Wyatt. To run. To get out. I picked him. Because James could take it. Like you - like you said.” She swiped at her eyes and then again, not looking at him. “I know that James - felt that. Before I even knew he could feel things, that the connection was real and not just in my crazy head, before then I knew he felt me not choose him. I don’t - know that he’ll ever remember later, or be able to put words to it, but I wounded him. Just as I... was. I was going to leave him. Like my parents... I chose to leave him behind.”

“You did not. You didn’t choose to leave him. You have him. He’s right here.”

She nodded, but he could tell she didn’t feel it, see it, believe it at all.

“When you talked to James, when you were - were buddies - and you talked to him, and only him, do you think Wyatt felt ignored?”

Her mouth dropped open.

“You never once - you haven’t said whether or not you think Wyatt felt ignored, not being spoken to, your words not intended for him. But I know, and you know good and well, that he soaked those words up too. He took them in as his own regardless of whether or not you knew he was there. And James, James, has felt a lot from you, has been given so much from you, and what he feels is how fucking much you overwhelmingly love him.”

She stared at him.

He knew he was talking too much, but when she accepted only one word in four, he had to keep filling up the space with words until the she got enough to believe.

“I feel it, for fuck’s sake. It’s the only thing that comes off you, Kate Beckett. You shut down every damn thing else so that love is the only fucking thing that gets through. All I feel - every damn second of the day - is that fierce and urgent - God, woman, you’re going to make me crazy if you don’t start nodding your head and saying you understand what I’m saying here.”

She croaked something that might have been a laugh and pressed her hand over her mouth.

“What James felt was you choosing to love them. You working your ass off to get them to safety despite yourself. You planning every fucking moment to give them better than they had. How you worked so fucking hard to protect them, physically and mentally, how you gave every last piece of yourself. The only reason James can - at all - be happy and normal is because you gave him every fucking tool and self-defense mechanism you had available. Have you not seen my brother? Fuck. Fuck. Colin was never a happy baby, and I know because I was fucking there. James is perfect. And it’s all because of you.”

Her hand dropped to her lap, her chest heaving a breath and then back out again.

He waited. He had the keys clenched in his fist and he wasn’t sure when that had happened.

“Okay,” she said. Her mouth opened and closed again, a helpless look flashing over her face. “Okay. Can - I drive now?”

Damn it.

“Yeah. Switch places with me.” He opened the car door and slid out.

It was like she hit her max and absolutely heard nothing else. 

He was going to figure out a way around this, oh fucking hell yes he was. He was damn well going to figure out how to bypass her shutdown.

More than sex. It had to be more than bodies.

Well, good thing they already were more than bodies. When they had sex, something else was going on there.

Fuck, now he wanted to have sex again.

She climbed into the driver’s seat and he got in the passenger’s and their eyes met over the center console.

“Thank you - for saying all that,” she spoke then. 

“But you don’t believe it,” he pushed.

“I... believe that you believe it. And that’s - special to me.” Her lips pressed flat and he knew now that was one of her tells, her emotional fluctuation nearly overcoming her. “I’ve never had someone so relentlessly believe the best of me.”

“Not even your parents?”

She nodded, a little movement of her head. “I was - potential. To them, I had so much potential. To you...”

“You just are,” he murmured.

She let out a shaky breath. “I just am. Whatever that is.”

\-----

She liked driving.

She pushed buttons on his radio and flipped stations, moving from motown to rockabilly to something hip-hop that charged the atmosphere of their Jeep and had Wyatt jabbering in the back seat.

Singing, maybe. In his own way.

It put a smile on her lips and Castle kept making little encouraging noises, like he was proud of her, like her dad when he’d first taught her to drive, and she finally had to smack the back of her hand against his pec to get him to stop.

“Cool it, mister.”

He laughed, and it made Wyatt laugh, and she thought James was finally awake too, which eased her mind a little. Castle turned around and passed out another round of snacks and water, and she had the whole road to concentrate on, the wide ribbon of the interstate and the chimerical horizon as they traveled into the sun.

Castle was coaching the boys to say stupid things, faster, mommy and fucking hell - which she thought was kind of cute and pathetic at the same time because you weren’t supposed to teach your kids curse words, were you? But what did it matter?

She drove until she literally ran out of interstate, and then from there, Castle guided her home. The interstate split and became two highways and they took the northbound lane heading towards the lake. She was surprised by how much she recognized, how many landmarks and bends in the road and lines of trees against the hills.

Wyatt was clapping at the end of every song and shouting Daddy! for Castle’s attention, while James was quiet but not altogether silent. He came out with a few words himself, as if he were making notes and naming things as he figured them out, just as Castle had said he did.

James thought it through to the end and then committed himself one hundred percent. Which might be why he hadn’t moved past fuck in his language acquisition for this car trip. He said it in a happy voice, uck, Mommy, uck, and Castle praised him every time he said it.

Ell, ell, ell Wyatt chanted, finishing James’s thought for him. Brothers, helping each other out. Even with curses their stupid daddy was teaching them.

She really did think it was cute. Let Castle try to break them of that one when it came time to be around other kids who weren’t allowed to say that word.

Yeah, so she wanted to be around to see that.

“You need anything?” Castle said suddenly, pointing through the windshield. “Last place to stop to stock up.”

“No, you? I can’t think of - anything, really.” Anything at all. She had no mental inventory of what they had available, what they’d saved or left or taken with them. 

“Naw. I’ll go back out if I need to. Or you can. Whatever works. Hey, boys, try this one, we’re home!”

“Ho-ho-ho!”

She giggled, clapped a hand to her mouth to suppress it, but Castle had already whipped his head around.

“Stop,” she warned him but her lips were twitching.

“You giggled.”

“Shut up.”

“Like a tiny girl.”

“I hate you.”  
“Like a very tiny-”

“Shut up, Richard.”

He laughed then, slid his hand over her knee. “Why is that hot? Shouldn’t be, but it is. Fuck me all the ways, Ms Beckett.”

She grunted, shooting him a fast eyebrow. What was he doing, some kind of hot for teacher fantasy?

“You’re good at that, you know. Taking that one thing and digging in, drilling down. You figured me out pretty fast.”

She froze, the car lost acceleration, Wyatt squawked in protest and actually came up with after, mommy. Which might as well have been faster. Kate sped up again, relentlessly watching the mph needle.

“He called me Richard. But you’ve already figured that out. How I hate it. Call myself Castle. Just - Castle. And then you - you already figured it out. You call me Rick when you - sometimes when you’re sweet, or you want me to do something to you. I like that.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, but she didn’t know what to say to that. He carried these conversations sometimes almost like she had never spoken a word.

“So it’s funny, I guess, how you pulled it out to tease me, really. Somehow you’re reclaiming it for me. Did you know you were doing that? Or was it just instinct?”

She cleared her throat, shrugged, couldn’t understand quite yet.

“Instinct,” he murmured. His arm came across the console and he draped it around her shoulders, played with her hair. “You have very good instincts.”

Calling him Richard to - what? Push him away from her. And instead he had taken it and run with it, spread its messy guts all over the table.

“Okay, there’s a left turn coming up,” he said then.

And the spell was broken and she had to concentrate once more. The road was mostly just gravel, and washed out roots, but simple to navigate in the dark, even with a kid yelling out: Aster, Mommy. Aster.”

\-----


	12. Chapter 12

While Kate gathered Wyatt out of his car seat, Castle hauled their duffle bags onto his back and then unbuckled James as well.

"Hi, Daddy."

Castle was so surprised that he nearly dropped the boy. "Hey, James." When he had his son against his chest and secure, he stopped a moment to give James a hug. "You're talking pretty good now. I think it makes Mommy happy to hear you."

"Mommy you."

"Hear you. She likes to hear you."

"E you."

"Close enough," he murmured, nudging down against the boy's temple for a kiss. "Just keep trying and I think that's all we really need."

"Hi, Daddy."

He chuckled and patted James's back for the effort, shrugging the duffle up onto his shoulder again. He shut the Jeep door and turned around on the gravel drive, searching for Kate. 

She had Wyatt by the hand, her other clutching the bag of the boys' stuff. She was bent over him, speaking in the kid's ear, and Wyatt was watching the trees as if captured by some vision. Castle scanned the treeline, but he didn't see anything amiss, or all that interesting, so he carried James towards the bridge.

He tried not to worry too much about whether she was following or how closely or if she needed help but wouldn't ask for it. She was a grown woman and she could figure it out, whatever it might be, and he was within shouting distance. Watching her drive - how much she enjoyed it, excelled at it even though a little rusty - had loosened him up a little. Shown him how capable she was, how she naturally thought on her feet and managed her own crises.

Not that driving was the same thing as surviving three years of John Black, but fuck did it prove she had coping skills. Serious coping skills. And they wouldn't fail her in the more boring and normal every day stuff either.

At least, not yet.

He was still well aware of the fact that she had a switch somewhere inside her, and when it flipped, it was all over.

But he was learning the signs, and he was figuring out how and what stressed her beyond her energy levels. He thought it was less about ability - she had the ability to handle it - but about the energy and need. A kind of perfect storm had happened when she had pulled that scalpel blade - the flux of new emotions and attentions, plus a serious deprivation of sleep and lack of proper nutrients had meant she was out of balance. 

John Black was a genius at balance. He knew how to keep people teetering on that edge, whatever edge it was he wanted you. He knew how to play the game, push the buttons, to put you there and keep you dangling, wanting, needing it. Even as you despised yourself for it.

Beckett had been in balance - until she wasn't. And now that she wasn't, it was going to take some work to find that balance on her own, under her own power, and not with Black's manipulating.

"Mommy," James murmured at his shoulder. The boy must be watching her approach on the bridge. Castle stopped by the front door and glanced over his shoulder to watch their progress.

Wyatt was lunging at the end of her arm, windmilling as he tried to race ahead or behind or into the railing. He was awake, that was for damn sure, but Kate just walked her normal pace, holding him back or preventing him from falling, not at all bothered by it.

She was rare. Not many people knew exactly what was important and how to hold on to it, how to keep that certainty in the forefront of their minds and exclude all sense of politics or drama or distractions. Her son - their son - was acting like a crazy man and she stayed placid.

In the grand scheme of things, Wyatt being able to lunge around and holler at the top of his lungs after a bird flying away from him was pretty damn awesome. He was allowed, he had the freedom to get in trouble, to choose his path even if Kate had to rein him back a little in the choosing.

"You want down?" he said to James. "Like Wyatt."

"I?"

"Wyatt," Castle repeated. "Do you want to do what he's doing?"

"My daddy."

His chest tightened and in response so did his arms, wrapping around James. "I guess that means you want to stay with me. I'll carry you around long as you want, my man. You were helping out your mom, weren't you?"

"My mommy." His arm came up and his hand outstretched, but he didn't lean away from Castle.

Kate approached, a kind of halting jerk as Wyatt swung like a monkey from the end of her hand. Wyatt seemed to have grown a lot more confident about his gross motor skills. 

"Hey, baby," she said, catching James's hand and kissing his palm. She smiled at the boy and the sun paled in comparison, her lips spreading and her mouth open and eyes sparkling. "Is Daddy going to let us in or are we stuck out here?"

He huffed and turned his head to the door, shifting to get a hand free. Keyless entry was great, but it meant that he needed to somehow put his whole palm against the scanner to let them in. He should talk to Colin about alternate methods. Maybe just a thumb print. Or retinal scanner. No need to drop everything.

"Should be unlocked now," he said. He had heard it click. "Go on."

Kate pushed ahead of him and inside, tugging Wyatt after her so that the boy tripped over the weather stripping and howled his displeasure.

In Castle's arms, James let out a little noise, like a huff, like one of Castle's own sounds when he was scoffing, and his ears burned as he realized it probably was.

Castle pushed his knee into the back of Wyatt's head. "Get moving, you little turkey. You're fine."

Wyatt gave him a baleful look, but the second Kate turned around, his mouth pouted and he tugged on her hand, refusing to move. "Mommy, mommy, mommy-"

"Daddy's right, I'm sure. You just tripped. Keep walking." She lifted her eyes to Castle, smirking a little. "Turkey, huh? That one might stick."

"Yeah, I don't know where that one came from. Someone somewhere must have said it."

"TV maybe?" She had stepped closer, her hand loosening from Wyatt's to cup the back of the boy's head, nudging him on. 

"I don't watch TV usually. I mean, SpongeBob is the only thing I've seen in entirety and it's the fault of these guys here." He jiggled James a little in his arms and the boy actually giggled in response, rolling his forehead on Castle's shoulder and looking up at him. "Oh, you might be tired. Is it that late? We'll make dinner soon."

"Here, James," Kate said softly. She had released Wyatt entirely to tug the rag doll out of the bag. James reached out an arm for it and then tucked in against Castle's chest with it.

Wyatt howled.

Kate laughed, glancing down at the boy. "Am I ignoring you?" She ran her fingers through Wyatt's hair, pushing it off his upturned, unhappy face. "Pitiful turkey now."

"'Ur-tee," James mumbled.

"Oh, now James is catching on," Kate laughed. "You little turkey, your brother thinks so too. Come on. Get going. If I pick you up now, you'll be a spoiled turkey. Move it."

She was ushering Wyatt ahead of them and out of the entry, so Castle followed them to the kitchen. "Hey, just put him in the chair and we'll get food in them. Then bath and bed, I think. Long day."

He saw her glance at the clock on the oven. "Alright. Maybe they can play a little after bath or watch more SpongeBob? Ew, not that one, it's so loud and whiny. Something easy. I'm afraid that if they go to bed this early, they'll wake too soon and be up there-" She gestured over their heads. "I don't know. Time for mischief." 

"Mischief," he smiled. But he'd had the same thought in that store. "They don't, though. I mean it's been - well, trained out of them. They're well-behaved but for a little of Wyatt's dramatics." He winced, thinking that had been too much, how 'well-trained' they were, what that reminded her of.

But Kate just shrugged, situating Wyatt in the seat. "You know there are some ways that the training makes this - well, simpler. They don't know yet that they could be rowdy and make trouble, so they don't. We get off easy. We catch a break."

He sighed and shifted James so he could get at the duffle bags on his back, drop them to the floor. "Yeah, that's true. New parent here, so I appreciate the break, but... not at the price."

"I'm just saying - we've already paid the price. I have. They have. So - fuck it. Might as well be grateful for the ways it helps make this easier. I don't know that I could do parenting if it had to look like... like everything."

"Yeah," he said, nodding helplessly. James was a heavy warmth in his arms, that doll tucked into his chest. 

"Sorry," she mumbled, turning away. "I didn't mean to make you upset-"

"I'm not upset," he said quickly, catching her by the wrist. She stiffened and he carefully drew her in against him, with him and James. "I am upset, yes. But not at you or not - not without reason. And I'll be able to channel this feeling - not just into the clean-up project and getting these sites shut down - but also into loving my sons, caring for them tonight, holding them and watching stupid TV with them. And loving you. Makes it better, makes it a richer feeling, that upset part of things. I'm grateful for upset. I'm better because of that upset."

She studied the rag doll against his chest for a moment and then nodded. "I see that. I feel it too. A little. Being angry at them made it easier to deal, like having a sharp focus. A b-blade."

"Yes," he said. "Exactly that. A blade. Honed by all this damn injustice and the fucking terrible things done to you guys. But you're right about - about finding the good parts of it. Already happened, right? Already over. So - yeah. I need to look at it that way. I have two really clever, well-behaved, respectful boys who love their mother endlessly. I am grateful. I am grateful for my family. My-" He swallowed and wound his arm around her upper shoulders, pressing her into him. "My family."

She cupped the back of his head like she had Wyatt's, fingers soothing at his neck. "Okay, Rick. It's - not all that. I only meant let's keep them awake as long as we can so they don't call for us at five am tomorrow." She trailed her fingers to his ear and then twisted it. He yelped, and she gave him a knowing little slant of her lips. "I think you and I will want to sleep in, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, that. You're entirely right," he said smartly, straightening up. "Okay, boys, come on. Let's make dinner."

\-----

Kate had to sit between James and Wyatt because both boys were unwilling to be without her. She had dragged a chair up between them, and when they had leaned into her, each with a little hand on her thigh, she had to tug their chairs in to meet hers.

Now they were little wolf puppies snuggled up to her side, and she had to keep putting them off her lap when they crawled up. 

“No, baby, eat your dinner. It’s good. Daddy made it.” She settled James back in his chair and pulled his plate closer. She heard Castle snort and she glanced up; he was alone on his side of the table, eating slowly, watching them with a look that made her chest tight.

“Good might be an overstatement,” he said, shaking his head.

“I think it’s good,” she spoke up. “It’s more than I know to do. My dinners always consisted of either breakfast foods or ramen noodles.”

“Well, it’s not ramen, I’ll give it that.”

“It’s a lot of green vegetables too. Good stuff in here.” She caught Wyatt’s fingers as he poked in under her arm and tried to take broccoli off her plate. “Baby, what are you doing? You little turkey, eat your own food.”

“Give it up, Kate. Put their portions on your plate and let them sit in your lap.”

She laughed, wrinkling her nose at him. “I refuse to let them win.”

“Fine, your party.” He lifted his eyebrows and stabbed his fork into his fish, swallowed another bite. He kept looking at her, studying her - no, not studying. Absorbing. Like he was soaking her in.

She dropped her eyes back to her plate in time to catch Wyatt again. “Not your food, you silly thing. Sit back down.” She nudged him aside, taking his hand in hers and pushing it towards his plate.

“Wyatt,” Castle said quietly. But there was just enough firmness to his voice that Wyatt’s shoulders hunched and he dropped back to his chair, leaving her alone.

She combed the hair off his forehead, wondered if it mattered, if this was a battle she shouldn’t have picked, if maybe Wyatt needed-

His little face peeked up at her, eyes sly and clever, and then he grinned and popped a piece of broccoli into his mouth, giggling.

“You are a little turkey,” she laughed. “Chew your food before you go giggling.”

“Mommy,” James called from her other side. When she turned, he was leaning in for her, and she had to catch him by his wrists to keep his sticky hands from getting her. 

“Hey, baby, I know. You’re both so needy tonight. But how about we eat our so good fish and broccoli and rice? Daddy is such a good chef, and he doesn’t seem to think he is because you guys are both being little monsters.”

“Onsers,” James echoed, nodding as if to himself.

Castle chuckled and pointed his fork at James. “You’re getting the hang of it, kiddo. Monsters. Tell your brother he’s a monster too. Say, Wyatt, you’re a monster too.”

James leaned past Kate and looked at Wyatt, tilting his head. “I? Onser.”

Kate let out a puff of laughter, surprised by that little exchange. “Wow. They’re picking up a lot more than I thought.”

“It’s a little scary,” he said. Her heart paused, but Castle got a rueful gleam in his eyes and continued. “Considering the things you and I get up to. Hope they’re not picking up that.”

Her mouth dropped open. 

He blushed.

“Damn,” she said.

“Am!” Wyatt cried out, smacking his hand into his plate. The plate popped up and broccoli went flying, fish tumbled out, and the individual grains of rice flung into Wyatt’s hair.

He jerked back, his face twisting, his whole body rigid.

He was frozen, bits of rice clinging to him, his hand arrested and smeared with broccoli, and after a heartbeat, Kate realized he was afraid, he was expecting punishment.

Castle stood up.

Wyatt’s eyes followed him, growing wider, and Kate’s breath caught in her throat.

But it was impossible to know - it wasn’t - he couldn’t be allowed to throw food and bang his hands onto his plate and make a mess of the table, and so if Castle had to-

He came around the table. Her heart was pounding too fast; she wondered blindly if it was Wyatt’s own heartbeat inside her head.

Castle’s fingers closed around Wyatt’s hand and his thumb stroked at Wyatt’s palm, brushing broccoli from his skin. “Scared you, didn’t it?” Castle said quietly. He started picking grains of rice from Wyatt’s hair. “Guess you won’t do that again. Which I would highly recommend, Wy.” 

Kate’s spine loosened, her hands falling to her lap as she watched Castle carefully clean Wyatt off. James crawled onto her thigh and she wrapped an arm around him automatically. Castle lifted Wyatt out of his chair and pulled rice from the creases of his shirt, his jeans, before he carried the boy back to his side of the table.

“Push that over here?” he said.

Kate nudged the plate over and Castle grabbed it, sitting down. He took the little fork and poked a bite of fish, offered it to Wyatt.

Kate, with James still sitting like a statue in her lap, watched as Wyatt slid a chagrinned little glance their way and then opened his mouth like a baby bird. Castle fed him, and Wyatt took the bite of fish, and James let out a sigh.

It was over, whatever it was, whatever it had been, and Kate wondered if Castle had known all along it was happening or if he was as oblivious as he appeared.

But she followed Castle’s lead, saying nothing, and simply began to feed James from his own plate. Alternating between feeding herself and the kid, while Castle did the same.

No one talked. 

She thought maybe Castle had felt it, and he was upset, and he just didn’t want to get into it.

Kate ducked her head close to James’s temple and brushed a kiss there, breathing into him. It’s okay, it’s okay, everyone is okay.

James tilted his head back and looked up at her, and then he snaked his arm up and twirled his fingers in her hair, opening his mouth for more.

\-----

“I’ll get their bath going,” Castle told her quietly. “While you finish up with James?”

She nodded, still silent, but her mouth turned up at one corner and she met his eyes, and he considered that a good sign. A damn good sign, and he let a short breath and nodded, hauling Wyatt up with him.

“You’re taking Wyatt?” she said.

He paused, trying to parse the nuances of that questions, if her tone had held fear or just concern. Or merely just a question.

He went with question and maybe some concern. “Yeah. Wyatt’s done. And he likes the bathtub.”

“Oh,” she murmured, eyebrows furrowing. She still held James in her lap. “You’re doing an actual bath.”

“Well, Carrie said - I mean, we don’t have to do it like Carrie did, but they had fun playing around in the bath.”

“Your tub is just so deep.”

He held Wyatt against him with a hand, gritting his teeth as he tried to navigate whatever this was. Things had been tense since Wyatt had slapped his hand into his food, and he knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault, except maybe his own for not telling the kid no outright, letting him scare himself so badly, but fuck, he really just needed - they all needed a break from each other.

“Would you rather they got a shower?” he said finally, taking care to keep his voice neutral and his face open. No judgment. No tension.

She tilted her head and glanced down at James. “No. I don’t - know what I’d rather. I’ve never had to think of it. Um.” She shook her head and he saw the shine to her eyes, how she was struggling to get herself together. “A bath is fine, just fine. Let’s do that.”

They all just needed a break. 

“Okay, will do. Just bring him when you guys are done in here. I’ll clean up the dishes later.” He didn’t wait around, didn’t try to fix things that couldn’t be fixed by him anyway. He just carried Wyatt away from the kitchen table and through to the bedroom, letting out a long breath.

His chest was tight.

Wyatt struggled in his arms for a moment, but Castle cupped the back of the boy’s head and held him closer. “No. No, Wyatt. We’re not playing around any more. We’re all a little too tired. We get silly and it’s funny, but we also get clumsy and we get hurt. Like you did at the table.”

Wyatt hunched down against his chest. Even if the kid didn’t have James’s extra sensory power, he had something that told him enough was enough. Self-preservation maybe, but he stopped struggling as Castle entered the bathroom.

“There we go. That’s better.” Castle realized he hadn’t hugged the kid, hadn’t kissed him or reassured him either, and he rebuked himself for not recognizing it sooner. 

He squeezed the kid with an arm, kissed Wyatt’s cheek with a loud smack, and then traveled kisses down his little face to his neck. It made Wyatt laugh, a breathless and high-pitched sound that squeaked out of him, but it did the trick. Castle kept teasing him with attack-kisses as he flipped on the water for the bathtub, and now Wyatt giggled helplessly, curling up and squirming down and flinging out just to get away.

Castle tested the water with the back of his hand, hanging on to Wyatt and slowly easing the boy down from hysterically silly. Wyatt let out a long, shuddering sigh and dropped his head to Castle’s shoulder, an arm coming around Castle’s neck.

“My daddy,” he murmured, patting Castle’s collarbone.

“Yeah, I am,” he told the boy, brushing a light kiss to Wyatt’s forehead. So light it was barely there. “And a good daddy doesn’t make you scared out of your mind, kiddo. Maybe a little fear of consequences, sure, but you shouldn’t be afraid of the unknown in me. You should know, you should all know, that I love you first and foremost.”

But he was explaining to a baby, a just-turned-one year old who took his cues from his mother, his brother, his known experiences. And not from the man who held him now, his heart heavy with sorrow.

“I won’t be like him,” he promised anyway. “Wyatt. I won’t be him. You’ll know - you’ll know I love you. Mommy will know. You don’t - ever have to get there, you don’t have to figure out how to love me back. That’s not what it’s about.”

He didn’t know if Wyatt felt any of this, if he absorbed it somehow. He had the same activity in his brain that Kate had on those scans, the same region, and maybe it meant something, maybe it helped. He hoped so. He would just keep talking until one day these boys - and Kate - understood.

He knelt by the tub and stood Wyatt on his feet, began undressing him. “You guys have changed my life. For the absolute better. For the best. And you’re Kate’s. I don’t know why it matters so much, but your mommy is amazing.”

Wyatt was staring at him, round blue eyes and the bud of his mouth, blinking as Castle talked. As Castle pulled the jeans down and the diaper off him.

“You’re just a little boy, but you’re her little boy, you’re my little boy, and you deserve to be loved. For all of you - even the plate-slapping and the curiosity and the dramatic little fits. All of that too, okay?”

“O-tay, Daddy.”

His mouth split into a grin and he cupped Wyatt’s face, kissed him hard on the forehead. “Very good. My smart boy.” He released the kid, laughed a little as he shook his head. “Alright. Enough being melodramatic, both of us, huh? You ready for a bath?”

Wyatt cocked his head. “Pay?”

“Yeah, you can play. I’ll get some of your toys and dump them in here with you. What do you say?”

Wyatt threw up both hands. “Yay!” 

Castle grinned even wider and caught the boy under his arms, lifting him off the floor and swinging him over the side of the tub. “Yay is right. Okay, sit down on your ass, kid. You’ll fall, knowing you, and you said you wanted toys to play with.”

“Pay, Daddy.”

“Sit, Wy.”

Wyatt squatted down.

“All the way, turkey.”

Wyatt flattened himself down and finally got his butt on the bottom of the tub. Castle ruffled his hair and got up off his knees, moving for the bedroom for toys.

Kid was okay. He was just fine. He scared himself because he hadn’t realized what would happen when he hit the plate and he hadn’t known what to expect after. Now that he knew, he was bouncing back.

And a bounced-back Wyatt would bring back James and Kate both.

The night wasn’t totally ruined.

\-----

"Mommy, me?" James said as she picked him up.

Kate shook her head and swiped at her eyes. "No, baby, not you. I'm okay. Just a long day." She gave him a smile and kissed his forehead, then had to wipe tears from his skin. "Tired. All of us. Don't worry."

"Mommy," he sighed and leaned into her chest. She swayed with him before the table, abandoned the idea of picking up the dinner dishes in favor of nuzzling her cheek down against his. James let out a little snuffling noise and curled up tight, as he had done newly born, wanting close, before they had all known better.

She cupped the back of his head and fitted her arm under his bottom, holding him just as close as he wanted, protected in a way she could now do, safe. 

"We're safe," she murmured, feeling it wash through her. Safe and yet in such turmoil, such tension still riding through them all. And for what? "We're safe, we're all safe, sweetheart. I'll try to remember that too. Okay?"

Safe but she herself was unsafe. Secure but she was unstable. 

She couldn't be trusted, not really- "But Daddy," she whispered to him. "Daddy is safe. You and Wyatt go to Daddy. You hear me, baby? Find Daddy, in case - sometimes getting this close isn't safe, but Daddy is always safe. Even if he looks big and acts kind of like a bully, it's always to keep you safe."

"My mommy," he mumbled against her.

She sighed, knocking her cheek into his. "Yeah, but Daddy too. Please, baby."

"My daddy."

Her shoulders slumped and she leaned back against the counter, taking a shaky breath. "Yeah. That's it. Your daddy. Daddy is safe, Daddy will keep you safe, always. It's okay, it's gonna be okay."

James lifted his head and brought his hands up to her face, looking so solemn. "Okay, Mommy."

She startled, laughing a little as James leaned in. She got an open-mouthed kiss to her lips and it melted her right down, a puddle of desperate, pathetic gratefulness, and she hugged him against her once more. 

"Thank you, James. Such a good heart." 

She closed her eyes and realized she was holding him too tight, let him go. Time to get moving. Bath for the boys and then Castle was right, they needed time to decompress, to get themselves unwound. They could camp on the couch, or even - she bet she could convince Castle to drag the television from the room upstairs into their bedroom and have everyone in the bed, cuddling up.

She would really like to cuddle with him. Just like James was cuddling up to her now.

"I know I keep saying you're like me, but like this, you are so your daddy. How you love with all your heart. Even me." She kissed his cheeks, one after the other, and felt his arms go around her neck once more, hanging on. "You were my boy, from the beginning. You know that, right, James? You were mine, all I had. You and me."

"Me, Mommy."

"Yeah, just like that." She carried her cuddly, warm little boy into the bedroom, hearing the sounds of splashing and Wyatt's delighted laughter. When she rounded the corner into the bathroom, she saw Castle on his haunches, shirt soaked and sticking to him, and then, over the rim of the tub, Wyatt's hands lifted in triumph.

"Hey, guys. Got room for one more?" She wandered inside, sank down to the lid of the toilet with James to see two pairs of blue eyes turn her way, curious and hopeful.

Castle came up his knees, reaching for her, but she shook her head. She was okay. "Yeah," he said, nodding. "Definitely have room. Right, Wy?"

"Ight!"

Castle sank back down and smiled at her. "I'm sorry. I was an ass. I didn't know how to handle that and I fell back on spy mode and just - shut everything off. Closed down. But that's not good for us, or the kids, and I'm sorry."

She froze, her hands arrested under James's shirt.

Castle scrubbed a hand through his hair. His ears were pink. "So. Yeah. Just - we'll chalk it up to learning and have a better night. I hope. I'd really like to - um - I'd really love to just curl up with you guys and pretend the day hasn't been as gut-wrenching as it really has. If that's-"

"Yeah," she spoke up, nodding. "Yes. I want that too."

His face flooded with relief and he sank back to his heels. "Good. Good." He came up again and reached for James, plucked the boy out of her lap. "Come on, Jay. Let's get you undressed and in the bath."

Kate put her elbows on her knees and simply watched. 

\-----


	13. Chapter 13

The moment she’d come into the bathroom with James and he’d seen all those broken pieces in her eyes, he’d felt it like a punch in the guts. He’d reached out for her and she had backed away, refused him, and fuck had that hurt.

But he’d done something to her first, and he knew enough to say he was sorry and hope they could keep move on. She’d come in with James rather than just send the boy on his own and leave them, so at least there was that.

As he soaped up the boys and rinsed shampoo out of their hair - the special baby stuff Carrie had bought for them - James kept ducking his hands to lean in against the side of the tub and look for Kate. She was still sitting on the lid of the toilet, her chin in her hands and her mouth in a gentle smile, and James would be reassured and sink back down into the bath.

Wyatt was making noises with his mouth as he pushed his toys around the tub, like he was driving them up the slopes and between James’s feet and up Castle’s arm. He kept trying to look down at the rubber blocks in his hands when Castle rinsed his hair, so the water swept down his face and dripped from his chin, wetting his eyelashes, but he didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t want to be pulled away from his play.

When James had made another check of his mother, Castle ran his fingers through the boy’s hair and ducked his head back. “Baby, what do you feel?” he whispered softly, letting the sounds from Wyatt cover his words. Kate was far enough away that she wouldn’t hear. “Jay. You checking on mommy for a reason?”

“My mommy. My daddy.”

“Yeah, buddy. Let’s learn some new words, shall we? How about happy? Is Mommy happy? Is she smiling?” He gave James a goofy and overlarge smile and the boy giggled, sliding a sidelong look towards where Kate would be sitting if he could see over the steep edge of the tub. “Oh, do Mommy’s arms not reach this far down? Is that why she’s not okay with the bath?”

“Mommy, mommy,” James intoned, looking serious and nodding his head.

“I think you have no idea,” Castle said back happily. “No clue, do you? Are you happy? Can you smile for me?”

“My!”

“Smile,” he said, trying to stretch out the sounds for him. “Smi-le. Can you say-”

“My!”

“Smile, James,” he said, giving the boy his own smile.

“My, my!”

“I think that’s the closest we’re gonna get for now.” He turned his head and gave Kate a raise of his eyebrows. “You hear him? He’s saying smile.”

“Smile?” She smiled then, lips pressed together, and James clapped for her.

“See?” Castle said. “Say it for Mommy. Say-”

“My, my, my!”

Kate laughed. “Oh, yes, I see you smiling, baby.” She shifted forward now and came to her knees but she was still at least a foot away. “Wyatt, what are you doing over there?”

“Hi, Mommy!” Wyatt lifted up his blocks and wagged them her direction. “Eep, eep! Two eep!”

“Holy fuck,” Castle croaked. “He just counted those.”

James swiveled his head back and forth between Wyatt and Castle, as if trying to figure out what had happened.

Kate’s mouth was still jaw-dropped, so Castle got to his knees and patted the top of Wyatt’s head. “Yeah, Wy, two Jeeps. Guess you’re a smart turkey.”

“Jeeps?” she murmured.

“He’s been making car noises with them.”

“Oh. He should have cars. I didn’t even-”

“They do have cars,” he promised. “They have this parking garage thing upstairs, sweetheart. I just didn’t want to run all the way up there with Wyatt alone in the tub.”

Her face cleared and her shoulders relaxed. “Oh, yeah, I saw that in their room. Cars. Yeah.”

“Hey,” he said softly. “Baby, anything you want for them, we can get. Anything. Fucking dollhouse for James’s rag doll, whatever it is. You think of something, you get it.”

She crossed her arms and held on to her elbows, nodding at him but not quite looking at his eyes.

“Kate, honey-”

“I’m okay,” she said immediately.

He paused.

Her eyes flicked to his. “You always - do that. Say honey when you think I need to be - softened up or something. Like I’m all jagged edges and if you pour a little honey over it, I won’t cut.”

“Well, fuck. Do I?”

She waved her hand as if it didn’t matter. “Wyatt can count.”

He blinked, doing a double-take, glancing back to Wyatt. “Yeah, he fucking can. Wyatt, buddy, how many cars you have?”

Wyatt tilted his head and then glanced down at the blocks in his hand. One little eyebrow raised, in such a Beckett kind of way, that Castle couldn’t help bursting out with laughter.

“Oh, God. He looked at me like I was insane,” Castle gasped. “Just like you do. Say, Daddy, these are blocks, not cars.”

“Box!”

“Yeah, blocks. How many of your blocks are Jeeps, buddy?”

“Eep!” Wyatt clapped his hands together but he still had hold of the blocks and all it did was make a muted knocking. He held out one hand to James. “Eep, A?”

“James, you want a Jeep?” Castle interpreted.

James took the block from him. “Box,” he said clearly. As if saying, not a Jeep. James leaned into Wyatt’s face, his mouth close, and he repeated it. “Box, I.”

Kate giggled.

Castle grinned. “Block, Wyatt.”

“Bock,” James corrected himself, frowning. He glanced down at his hand with the block in it and then at Wyatt’s block, and then finally around the bath tub. He lifted his head and glanced to Castle, some kind of consternation on his face. “Box?”

“Yeah, I know. That’s one block, and these are many blocks. Blocks,” Castle said, circling his finger around the whole of the bath. James looked supremely confused.

“I think plural and singular is a bit much for fourteen - fifteen months - even if they are the smartest boys who ever lived,” Kate said, shifting forward to lean in against the tub. She propped her arms on the rim and laid her chin on top, smiling at James. “Isn’t it, baby? Just play with your blocks, honey. It doesn’t matter right now.”

“Box,” James said, as if confirming something. He leaned in to Kate, half-rising in the bath tub to reach her, and he opened his mouth and landed it against her lips. She laughed and kissed him - and Castle realized then that James had been giving her a kiss.

“Okay, that’s adorable. Fucking hell, kid, how are you so adorable? Giving Mommy a kiss, I saw that.”

James was holding on to Kate’s arm with his other hand against the tub, but he turned and looked at Castle.

His mouth opened and he craned his neck to Castle.

“Oh, hell,” Castle croaked, feeling like he might actually cry. He leaned in to meet James and got a wet, open-mouthed kiss at his chin. “Fuck. They’re gonna disembowel me, aren’t they? I’m a fucking CIA agent, I’ve killed people, and yet my kid gives me a kiss and I feel like my guts have been ripped out.” He cupped James’s face in his hands and kissed the boy’s cheeks. “I’ll spill, buddy. Any secret you want. It’s yours. If Mommy hasn’t pulled it out of me first of course.”

“Me?”

He kept hold of James as the boy sank back down to the tub, and then he looked at Kate. “Yeah, you. I guess I’m a sucker for a good kiss.”

She laughed, but he could see it had gotten to her too. That kind of reaching out from James. 

Suddenly there was a slap of hands against water and then a massive spray coasted over the tub and drenched both of them. They startled apart, and heard the boys - both of them - chuckling like two old men, so pleased with themselves.

“Well, that’s our cue,” Castle muttered, swiping water from his face and looking over at Kate. She was using the hem of her shirt to dry her face, but she was smiling. He turned back to the tub. “Boys? Have fun playing for a while. Mommy and I are gonna leave you to it.”

He rose from his crouch over the tub and offered Kate his hand.

She placed her fingers against his palm and he curled his hand around hers, tugged. Kate lifted to her feet like it was effortless, and her hips brushed his, bumping, their wet shirts clinging and dragging.

“Are we gonna play?” she murmured.

He had meant to talk. He had meant to explain and try to smooth away the hurts he’d caused.

But maybe play was better.

\-----

Before they could even move out of the bathroom, Kate was shaking.

Her heart pounding, her hands trembling even in their fists, and she couldn't take another step. Castle halted at the threshold and looked back to her and she opened her mouth but couldn't speak.

"Okay," he said slowly. "Alright. We know what this is, honey - sorry, I think that one has stuck too, but - I don't know, does it work? Does it make the panic attack a little smoother?"

"Panic attack," she choked out. That's why? Why she was shaking and couldn't leave the room. "Don't know. Try - try again."

He gave her that slow as molasses smile, and just as sweet, and came in slowly, skirting his hands over her shoulders and down to her clenched fists. "Hey, honey," he murmured, and heat bloomed in her belly. "It's okay, baby. We know exactly what this is. We'll stay right here, right here with the boys, and you're gonna be just fine. Count to three and take a breath."

One. Two-three-

"That's it, that's it, slow it down, honey."

A panic attack. Why? Why when she had figured it out and gotten herself back together? Why when she hadn't had a single damn moment of weakness in three years? Why now when it mattered so vitally that she not break-

"Hey, hey," he called to her. Soft, soft, his voice just like that honey. "Hey, it's okay. It will pass. It might take you with it, but it can't have you. You'll come right back to me, sweetheart. You know you will."

"James," she said tightly. She hadn't realized her eyes were shut.

"James doesn't even notice," Castle whispered. Closer now, and that was worse, too close, too close, and she felt her head hit the wall as she scrambled back. 

"James doesn't - notice," she repeated, turning her chin away from them.

"No, honey. He's playing with Wyatt. All I can see is the tops of their heads from here, but they're not standing up looking for you. See? I think you shut down so hard they can't get in."

She nodded, but it turned into a wild and uncontrolled shaking, and she had to bring her hands up and hold her head onto her neck, sink down to the floor with her knees pulled up to her chest.

"It's okay, honey, it's okay. Stay right here. Breathe, baby. One - two - three-"

She sucked in a breath and felt light-headed, her ears ringing, but if she pressed her forehead to her knees it was better, it was better, she could almost breathe. She could feel her lungs struggling to expand; she could gasp it in and push it back out again and it wasn't going to kill her.

She wasn't going to die.

James couldn't feel her, she was right here. She was still here, the boys weren't going to die.

She was breathing.

"Hey, that was pretty fast, wasn't it?" he was saying. His hand was rubbing her back between her shoulders, his chest almost touching her arm. "You're coming out of it again, I can tell. You just-"

She slumped over into him and he let out a little laugh, but she couldn't help the way she crawled into his lap and buried her body into his. He was warm and she was shaking with cold, and he was that golden honey voice in her ear, soothing her back to normal.

"Figured what set you off, I think," he murmured into the top of her head. His arms were loose but she gripped a fistful of his shirt and clung closer. "Leaving the boys alone in here. That's probably not very safe, is it? I wasn't thinking about it, but Wyatt would do something clumsy and they'd both drown, the little turkey."

She gave a hitched breath that was part laughter and part horror, and his arms tightened reflexively. The tighter embrace made her sink into him, as if the stronger his hold on her the better. She hadn't realized just how much she craved being contained, as if his arms around her could keep her from flying apart.

"Sorry, I won't put that vivid a picture in your head," he whispered. "My bad."

She laughed, laughed like holding her guts inside, like too much movement would unravel her. He was cradling her, rocking, and his lips dusted the side of her cheek just before her ear. 

"I'm okay," she said finally, her fingers easing out of their fist. 

"I know you are."

She sighed and watched the two heads in the bath tub, the darker one leaning forward now as if to tell his brother a secret. There was a giggle that bounced on the water and across the tiles and made her heart ease, and she slid an arm around Castle and laid her head on his shoulder.

"We'll stay right here and watch," he murmured.

"I'm sorry."

"Please don't apologize." His words came as if torn from his throat, making her lift her head and look at him. His eyes were bright, like he might cry. 

Just that fast? Just because she couldn't keep it together? Or-

"I can't - stand it if you think you owe me something. Like it's nothing more than a transaction."

"Oh," she breathed. "No. I - no." She touched her fingers to his lips, that twisted grimace. "It's - more. I don't-" She sighed. "No."

He nodded, his throat bobbing and his head down, but she could see how he was still struggling.

She framed his face with her hands and kissed him, smudging her mouth to his to draw it out of him. He immediately straightened up, pushing up into her, and she unfolded her legs to wind them around his waist, rocking against him.

Castle moaned. 

Around her tongue.

And she was alight.

\-----

“Mom-my.”

“Daaaaa-deeeee.”

“Mom-my.”

“Daddy, me.”

At the boys’ incessant and ever-louder calls for them, they finally broke apart, breathing hard, hands tangled under clothes, hearts pounding.

“We should...”

“Get them,” she murmured, blinking heavily. She canted back into him, like she couldn’t hold herself up, and their mouths collided once more, desperate, hungry. He couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t stop wanting, devouring her.

“Mommy, mommy, mom-me.”

This time Kate tore herself away first, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth. But she was staring at him, her eyes as dark as the universe.

“Dadddeeeee-”

“Should go,” they both said, nodding, and if she felt as disoriented and needy as he did, he wasn’t sure they would actually go.

“Mommy,” Wyatt sing-songed. “Daddy. Mommy. Da-”

“Okay!” Castle called back to them. “We’re coming. We’re coming, guys.”

Kate let out a hard breath and pushed off his lap, standing on shaky legs, though he couldn’t be sure that was for him or because of the panic attack.

She held out her hand for him, fingers wriggling. He took it, putting no more pressure on her than he had to, getting to his feet. When he was standing, he could see both boys standing in the tub, soapy hands clinging to the edge, a little bouncing from Wyatt while James had his head tilted against the rim.

Tired. They were both tired, and that made James droop and Wyatt bounce. “Okay, guys,” he said, heading for the tub. “Time to get out. I know. Come on.” He snagged a towel from the bar and spread it out on the floor, then grabbed for Wyatt first, thinking it might be a good idea to get the kid away from the slippery stuff.

“I’ll get Jay,” she murmured behind him. He turned and she had a towel pressed against her torso; she was already leaning over for James.

Castle tugged another towel from the rack and wrapped it around Wyatt, rubbing him down as he shivered. The boy reached out and gripped Castle’s shirt at the shoulders, his teeth chattering. “Daddy.”

“Yeah, buddy. Cold, I know. I’m working on it.” 

He scraped the end of the towel over Wyatt’s face and then back over his wet hair before he scooped the kid up. Wyatt giggled and clung to him, almost upside down now, and Castle turned and carried him into the bedroom.

Kate followed with James, the boy cuddled up against her chest, and Castle dropped Wyatt on the bed. 

“Hey, I’ll run upstairs and get them some pajamas,” she said, easing James to the mattress. “You got them?”

“I got them,” he affirmed, watching her as she was already climbing the stairs. When she had disappeared, taking the steps two at a time, he turned back to the bed and faced the boys. Wyatt was climbing on top of James, pressing him down into the towel, giggling. Castle had to lift the kid off, shaking his head. “Calm down. Alright. We’re gonna take it easy tonight, guys. You hear me? No wriggling around. We’ll watch tv or something, keep right with Mommy.”

“Mom-my,” Wyatt sang, tilting his head.

“That’s right. I need you onboard, Wy. You’re the unruly one.”

“I, I, I,” James parroted, pushing on his brother to give him room. He wriggled away from Wyatt and crawled up the bed, dug down under the covers by the pillows. His teeth were chattering.

“Hey, clothes coming soon. Wyatt, you too, get in. You’re both wet and cold.”

Next time, have the pajamas ready in the bathroom. It would also prevent them from getting their sheets soaking wet. 

“I got clothes and clean diapers,” Kate called out, thudding down the stairs again. She jumped the last step and came towards the bed, tossing an outfit onto the comforter and keeping the other. She sat right down and grabbed for the nearest boy, turned out to be Wyatt, and began wrestling the diaper onto his active little body.

Castle hesitated only a moment, sat down beside her and took up the striped pajama pants, the second diaper, and then he reached for James.

But James came easily right into his arms, stood on the bed as Castle directed him. He had to widen the kid’s stance to get the diaper to fit snugly, but after that it was easy. James was dressed and his hair finger-combed before Kate had managed to get Wyatt to lie down.

“Wyatt,” Castle said sharply. “Stay still. Mommy’s trying to help you.”

Wyatt whined but he flopped back to the mattress, lifting his feet like that would help. Kate batted them down and pulled his pajama pants up and over his diaper, and Wyatt did at least lift his hips to help. 

“Much better, baby,” she murmured, pulling on his hands to lift him up again. “Now for your shirt.”

“Hey, I’m gonna grab the television from upstairs and hook it up in here. I figured we could watch satellite - there’s bound to be something kid-friendly - and just hang out in here for the rest of the evening.”

Kate lifted a shy face to him, one corner of her lips turning up in a smile. “Yeah? I think that’s perfect.”

He nodded, mostly to himself, and ducked in for a quick kiss before he started for the stairs.

He could just hear Kate whispering to Wyatt, Daddy’s so strong; he’s gonna carry down the tv for you guys.

\-----

She had pushed off her shoes and discarded her jeans in favor of one of Castle's soft black t-shirts and simple panties, and when she had crawled in under the covers, the boys came eagerly, wedging between pillows to press themselves against her.

Castle was hooking up a satellite receiver in the bedroom, the television already on and blank with no reception. The boys kept lifting their heads to watch him, their handyman father, little curious eyes and upturned faces, and then they would snuggle back down with her and murmur to each other.

Talking about him, she thought, talking to each other in a way that was mostly code and mutual understanding rather than real language, but it had worked for them. They had coordinated every attack in that facility, hadn't they? Back and forth, James climbing into bed with Wyatt somehow when she'd found them and how many nights had they done that? Every night? How many moments would she never know until it came up at the dinner table, both of them rigid with fear?

It didn't depress her so much as - well, it made her fierce. Made her want to kiss their faces and hold them tighter. Made her want to run upstairs for their little toy cars or tame a wolf so they'd have a dog like boys should. She wasn't sad over them, and she wasn't sure why - why it didn't hit her like it did Castle.

Maybe it was because she never asked for them. Because they hadn't ever been under her control, they hadn't been hers to shape and love - she had simply taken them. She had adopted them, she had chosen in the only way she could choose - because they had chosen her. Fought for her. Now she would fight for them.

Nothing to be sad about. No reason to cry. They were going to make it, all of them.

"Okay, hey, I think I got it."

She lifted her head and saw Castle eyeing the picture critically, his chin jutting out, brow furrowed. He turned back to her to see what she thought, that one eyebrow raised, half of his face smoothing out in question.

"Looks perfect. But Rambo wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

His head swiveled back to the screen and he laughed. "No. Right. Me either. Let's find the guide and switch it over."

He backed up slowly, not watching where he was going, while he used the remote to page through the selections. When his legs hit the bed, he turned and tossed her the remote - mostly not looking - but which she caught automatically, without thinking about it, a second before it might have struck James in the head. But her heart was pounding.

Close one, close, too close.

Her mouth opened, her hands clutching the remote, and Castle's jaw dropped, his eyes scanning the boys. "I didn't - I shouldn't have thrown it," he croaked. "I didn't think."

"I didn't know I'd catch it," she said, that weird sensation of panic sliding around in her guts like an eel. "I didn't even decide to catch it, it just happened."

"I'm used to Col," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm used to being on my team, with my team, and we just - we're trained but... so are you."

"I guess so. I just - I don't know what to think about that."

"Think, um, good? At least our reflexes are fast enough to prevent disasters?"

She laughed, tilted her head back against the headboard. "Yeah. Trained well enough just to keep up with them. That's - at least there is that."

He scrubbed both hands down his face. "I think I need some sleep. I've never pushed this far this long. I'm sorry-"

"Please don't," she got out. "If I can't apologize, neither can you."

"That doesn't make any sense. I should be apologizing every fucking day of my life-"

"Don't," she said sharply, lifting her head. "It's not a transaction. I don't fuck you so you'll stay with me."

His mouth dropped open, but his face flushed hot, and his eyes were glittering, hard. Angry. "It's not a transaction," he said harshly. "It fucking better not be."

"So - stop apologizing. That's not what I want. Or need. Fuck, Castle, that's not even something I can handle right now."

"I'm - I'll do my best to make it mean something," he said then, jaw tightening. "So it won't cheapen the times when you deserve it heartfelt from me, for being a stupid and selfish asshole." He shook his head. "Because that's gonna happen."

"Fine. Then same for me. Leave it for when it means - for when I need it. Because I will."

"So long as you're not apologizing for things you can't control."

She glared at him. "This isn't a negotiation."

"I think it is, little bit."

"I'm too tired to think about all these little exceptions," she huffed. "Leave it alone, Rick. Best I can do right now."

He crossed his arms over his chest, as if he was going to dig in his heels and start something, but then his face flushed and he loosened, his whole demeanor changed. "I forgot the damn infusion. I'm an idiot. Baby, I entirely forgot about it. You're supposed to be hooked up right now. Fucking hell."

"Uck, Daddy."

"Yeah, you said Wyatt. Fuck Daddy. He's an idiot. Let me get-"

"Castle," she said sharply.

He stopped, arrested halfway out the door, and she stared at him, trying to come up with the words that meant any of the emotions roiling in her guts and twisting through her heart, but there weren't words.

"Castle," she sighed.

He tapped two fingers against his thigh as if he were thinking, and that finger-tap was just so exactly John Black that it closed up her throat for good.

She couldn't speak now if the right words did come, and then as Castle switched directions and headed for her, she nearly came out of her skin.

"What." He had jerked to a halt, right there, a foot from her on the bed, his hand out to grab her but not. Not. He was waiting on her. "What is it, Kate. Why-"

If she said you remind me of him he would - oh God. He would - never be right. This would never be right between them ever again.

"Kiss me," she got out, and she closed her eyes.

Had to.

She knew his touch, knew his taste and when it came, when his mouth brushed over hers and then his tongue licked lightly at her lips, she moaned in relief and clutched his ears, keeping him there long enough to erase the blacker sensations that haunted the corners of her mind.

He kissed her, little soft kisses, coming back again and again, stroking two fingers down her throat and curling in the collar of her shirt. When she finally opened her eyes, he was liquid blue warmth, like the Pacific ocean in the summer sun, and she was floating.

"Love you," he whispered, and his lips graced her forehead. "I'll get the infusion, get you set up. Find something for the boys?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding into the release of his hands.

\-----


	14. Chapter 14

Castle smoothed his thumb over the inside of her arm, circling the place where the IV went in. He had hung the bag from the headboard, and he checked it every now and then to be sure it was still moving, but for the most part, everything was going smoothly.

He had Kate between his legs and the boys in various stages of interest in the movie - some romantic comedy with little kids in it which held their attention. James was on his belly on Kate's shins while Wyatt was standing up wedged between Kate's shoulder and Castle's arm. He kept leaning forward and laying his head against the back of Kate's neck, and then popping up again and bouncing on his toes as if to keep himself awake.

Castle had his arms full, really. Kate was stroking her fingers along the inside of his thigh, not that high really, but it stirred something in him, made him want things, made him just on this side of restless. She, however, was leaned back against him, truly relaxed in a way he hadn't seen since... that day at the zoo when she'd thought it was the end. He wasn't sure why now, but he'd warily take it, assuming she understood she couldn't - she wouldn't - be approaching the end any longer.

"This movie is kind of hilarious," she said, turning her chin up to him. "Do you - think?"

"Honestly, I'm paying more attention to your fingers on my leg than the movie."

She laughed and smirked, that sideways smile that made her look like a new person, or maybe it was a glimpse of who she really was under all the layers armored up over the last three years. "Hmm, should I apologize and move my hand or just keep driving you a little crazy?"

"Crazy, please. Wouldn't want it any other way."

"Well, that's good, because crazy is definitely what you've got." And with a dramatic pause, she half turned to Wyatt and tugged on the boy's ear. "This one is certifiable."

Castle laughed in response, gave her a nod of his head for that. "Ah, yes. He's pretty nuts. Aren't you, Wy? Can you say nuts?"

"Uts!"

"That's it. Nuts. You sure are."

"Uts, Mommy." Wyatt bounced and leaned in, drawing an arm around her neck and strangling her. She chuckled and curled her hand at his wrist, kissed his little palm.

"Quiet, baby," she murmured at him. "Time to be quiet."

Wyatt babbled in her ear and wriggled deeper between them, flashing Castle a look that was either possessive or triumphant.

Kate squirmed until she wasn't quite crushing the kid, but she wound up disturbing James's balance on her shins. The boy turned and came crawling up her legs, but he crashed when he got to her thighs, his cheek against Castle's inside thigh, right where Kate had been crazily stroking him.

"Well, there goes crazy," he sighed.

Kate giggled, and then groaned and rolled her eyes. "Thought this would go a little differently, to be honest. I don't want to - force them to be quiet and stay still when that's... it was always just for emergencies, you know?"

His heart dropped. "For emergencies. Oh."

"So I could - it's like a trick - from when they were so so small. I could make them be absolutely quiet if I squeezed a knee. But that's..."

"Fear," he supplied. "No, I don't - let's not do that. If Wyatt has to squirm around, then well - okay, we'll deal with it when or if it becomes an issue."

She sighed, nodding as she dropped back against him. "Yeah, I think so too." She rested her hand with the IV in the arm on James's back, began stroking down the boy's spine in the same way she'd been touching him. Made him long for it back, jealous of his own kid.

When she had crawled into bed with him after he'd been stabbed, and he had rolled over on top of her and just - fallen asleep, unconscious - that had been the best feeling. How relieved he had felt to know she was right there, she was there.

Jealous of his kid, and yet he had her right here in his arms, relaxed, sleepy even, about as calm as he'd seen her in a long time. 

Castle leaned into Wyatt and nudged the boy's temple with his cheek. "Wy, you need to sit down - lie down with Mommy. It's almost bedtime."

And to his surprise, Wyatt did as he said, crawling and climbing over both of them to the mattress. He curled up like a wolf puppy right on top of Kate's thighs while James held center in her lap.

"Good boy," he said softly, pushing forward just enough to scratch Wyatt's back. "Good little man. Watch the movie."

\-----

Castle carefully eased Kate back to the mattress and she didn’t wake, simply curled onto her side with her arm around James. Both were heavily asleep, but Wyatt, of course, was awake, so Castle had to take the boy with him.

Wyatt held up his arms and Castle hoisted the boy into his arms, shifted him until Wyatt was on his hip. That gave him a free hand to gather the empty bag and line, the biohazard needle, and then he carried everything out of the room. 

“Daddy, out?”

“No, baby, not going outside right now,” he murmured. 

Wyatt sighed and slumped back against him, reached a curious hand for the medical trash.

“No, Wy. It’s not clean. Don’t touch.”

“No, no, no,” Wyatt parroted, though his tone might have a touch of frustration to it.

“Shh, my man, hush. Mommy’s asleep, and so is your brother.” He opened the cabinet under the sink and deposited the infusion material into the biohazard trash can they always kept. When you and your brother were chained to a regimen of needles and blood tests, a biohazard bin was just part of the deal.

“Daddy, ba?”

“Uh. I don’t know what that one is,” Castle said, nudging his wrist into the faucet to turn on the water. He washed one-handed, and Wyatt leaned out and played his fingers in the spray.

“Ba, ba, ba.”

“That’s water, crazy turkey.”

“Wa.”

“Wa is good enough. Water.”

“Wawa.”

“Sure, that sounds good. Water. Hang on, let me dry my hand off.” He closed the faucet and swiped his hand across a paper towel. Kate had asked him last week where are your dish towels? and he realized she was right - they needed dish towels. And so many other things, he was sure, that he hadn’t even considered before.

“Daddy, wa?”

“Oh, you want water? Yeah, sure, I can get you something to drink. Want your cup?”

“Up?”

“Cup,” he said, heading for the top cabinets. He pulled out the cups they’d bought at the pharmacy that first time, and he unscrewed the top with one hand. 

After a minute, he had to set Wyatt down on the counter to hunt through the fridge. 

“Wy? How about juice?”

“Uice!”

“Juice. Jeep. James. Having trouble with that j sound.”

“A?” Wyatt startled, peering past Castle towards the bedroom.

“No, he’s asleep, asleep. Sorry, buddy. That was mean of me, wasn’t it? No, just you and me right now.”

Wyatt threw up both hands. “You me!”

“Yes, you and me,” Castle grinned. He tapped a finger on Wyatt’s nose and twisted off the cap to the orange juice. He only put a little in the cup, filled the rest of it with water. Kate had said she had no idea what they’d been given, and when they had looked up foods and talked to Carrie, watering down their juice had been a common practice.

Bizarre. His life was now entirely unrecognizable. His father was dead, he had twin boys, his brother was stable enough to keep said boys - and there was this woman.

The mother of his sons. Made a science project by his own father, a guinea pig to refine the perfect soldier. And these boys, immersed in training to the point where their behaviors and reactions, their little minds were just so-

Warped wasn’t the right word. But what was?

“Daddy, uice.”

“Yeah, sorry, zoned out. Here you go, baby.” He handed Wyatt the cup, made sure it was tight, and then picked the boy off the counter. “Want to go back to Mommy?”

“Mommy. Uice?”

“Naw, buddy, she doesn’t-” Castle paused. “Well, you know what? You’re a good man to think of it. Let’s get Mommy something to drink.”

But when he opened the fridge, there were two bottles of wine - a white and a blush that must have been Colin’s. Vodka and scotch were both in the sideboard in the living room, and beyond that, he figured there was a six pack of beer in Colin’s mini fridge too.

Huh.

He wondered if she’d ever had any. Any of it. With the infusion from the boys, it might not do much to her if she had some now, and maybe - well, a glass of wine at the end of the day might be good for her. Ease her down, help her sleep.

“You know what, Wyatt?” he said, settling the boy back on the counter. “You might be a genius.”

“Ee-nes. Me.”

“Yup. You. I know, seems impossible, doesn’t it?”

Wyatt cackled, laughing like maybe he understood his father’s joke. “Daddy, me.”

“That’s right, you,” Castle said, popping the cork out of the white. “Genius baby. Scary genius baby, aren’t you?”

\-----

She woke when a body came wriggling in under her arms and up against her face. Little body, little hands, and she dragged her eyes open to find Wyatt giggling with James, who looked just as disoriented as she felt.

"Baby, be nice," she whispered, smoothing back Wyatt's flop of straw-colored hair. "Don't kick him."

"Here, my fault," Castle said from somewhere behind her. His hand came down into the range of her vision and set his glass on the bedside table before shifting back to haul Wyatt out from between her and James. "My man, what did I say about being gentle? Mommy's trying to sleep."

"No, no, I'm awake," she mumbled, trying to shift upright with James. "And James shouldn't sleep yet either. Come on, baby, little bit longer so we can all sleep in tomorrow."

"You're not sleeping in," Castle said, wriggling his eyebrows. "I'm waking you up in a very special way."

She laughed, a kind of helplessly tired thing, and leaned hard into his side. He was reaching past her for his glass and he tipped back a mouthful, holding it for a moment on his tongue before he swallowed. She could see all of that work, the effort of movement and throat, the lazy way he settled the glass back on the night stand on his side of the bed. Her eyes tracked the small slosh of liquid in the glass and then she smelled it, redolent and sharp, in the air between them.

"What's up?" he said, his free hand tugging on Wyatt's pajama bottoms to pull them back up over his diaper. Wyatt was crawling away, heading down towards the foot of the bed.

She let James escape her arms to go after his brother and then she slid closer to Castle, winding around him, the heat of his skin bleeding into her cold limbs.

He combed her hair down, pressed her against him. "You have dreams or-"

"No, just - slow to wake. You - poured wine."

"I should've poured you one," he said quickly, shifting to grab the glass. "I thought you'd still be asleep. We can share, or I can get you your own glass."

He was holding it, cradling it really, the stem between his fingers. She touched the round globe of the glass but she didn't take it. "I don't know how long - in high school we really only had beer."

"Oh. Well, wine is definitely better than beer, sweetheart. But it's something of an acquired taste. How are you as a drunk - sad, silly, stupid?"

She chuckled, lifting her eyes to him, reading his face. "You're oh-so-casual about this. You care a little too much, Rick. What's going on?"

His face changed, dropped that studied nonchalance. "I - thought about you turning twenty-one with no - nothing. No fun bar crawl with friends or some guy taking you out and treating you right. Just-"

"Don't worry about it," she sighed, laying her cheek back to his shoulder. "They're just numbers, just moments."

"Well, how about this moment?" he murmured, swirling the wine in the glass a little. "Obviously, you don't have to, this isn't me trying to lead you astray or anything. But I thought you should know it's here, and this is the safest place to experiment a little, see what you like, if you like it at all. Colin drinks when he has to, and I'd rather he do it here, so we keep it around."

"It doesn't hold appeal," she said, shrugging but moving to sit up again. She leaned back against the headboard rather than against him, and she took the wine glass from his hand. "I mean - we drank at parties and out being silly, having fun, but that's not this."

"We're not having fun?"

Her breath caught but when she looked at him, he had that quirky little smile. She punched his shoulder for that and the wine sloshed in the glass she held, and before she was really thinking about it, she had tipped it into her mouth.

It was so bitter. And it scalded her taste buds so that they were numbed. Castle took the glass from her, laughing at the face she made.

"I think you might have swallowed that too fast, but otherwise, I admire how you just went for it."

She shook her head, pushing her tongue against her teeth and trying to clear her senses of the onslaught. It still burned, faintly, like a circle in her mouth.

"Good, bad, indifferent?"

"Not indifferent," she croaked. "Different. Not beer. For sure. Why does Colin drink-" She sighed. "Oh."

"Oh," he echoed. "Better than having to use. At least it's legal, but beyond that, it does actually help. Takes the edge off things, helps him remember that it's not life or death, just - just life."

She took the glass back from him and tried again, sipping slowly, letting it stay long enough to actually taste the flavor past the numbing sting of alcohol.

"You never said what kind of drunk you are," Castle reminded her.

She swallowed, a little at a time, and then said, "You trying to get me drunk?"

He grinned. "Maybe." His head tilted like James sometimes did, and she thought he was picking it up from her. And that tickled her, made her heart flutter in her ribs. Maybe that was the wine.

"I think I'm tired and messed up enough that a glass just might do it," she admitted. "But beer only made me buzzed, and drunk - well, I was too much my parents' kid to let myself get to the passing out stage."

"Never?"

"Never," she shrugged. "Maybe I would have - later. But in high school, there are just too many parents who know your parents, and mine are both - were both lawyers. It wouldn't have been good."

"So buzzed Kate Beckett is what?"

"Giggly," she muttered, wrinkling her nose.

"On beer," he clarified. "But wine?"

"I never drank enough to know." She poked his thigh with her drawn up foot. "What about you?"

"I don't really get drunk. I metabolize it too fast. It's only ever enough to make me finally relax."

"Is that why you filled your glass to the brim?" she laughed.

"Yeah, that." His eyes shifted over her face. "You look happy."

"I feel happy," she shrugged. Looked at him back. Sighed as his eyes grew so hopeful. "And it's not the wine, Castle."

He grinned. "Not the wine."

"You know it's not. Two swallows does not take the edge off."

"Then have a few more. I'm interested in drunk Beckett."

"No point in getting drunk," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, not drunk, then - buzzed. I'm guessing you get silly, and I really would like to see that."

"Shut up," she said nudging his thigh again. "You're a bad influence."

"I know," he said immediately, a dark desire flaring in his eyes. "I'm a very bad influence. I've worked my whole life to be that way, and only now - only right this moment - am I so very glad to be so good at it."

"Ah, you set this all up," she said slowly, grinning at him. "Pushed just enough, filled one glass, one forbidden glass, a little too full. Set it down in front of me." She shifted, holding the wine against her chest as she slowly straddled his thighs.

Ground into his lap.

He grinned like a wolf and clamped his hands at her hips.

"Didn't you," she breathed, close to him, not close enough.

"Never say," he husked. "But if only two swallows has you rubbing against me, why don't you go ahead and drink the rest of that?"

She stared down at him, the tease and the challenge, and she put the glass to her lips and took a few more healthy mouthfuls.

The warmth of his skin seemed to transfer straight into her, through to her marrow, burning her inside.

\-----

The glass was empty. She was leaning hard into him, her naked breasts to his bare chest, and while he wasn't the one drinking, he was having a hard time remembering how they'd ended up this way.

"You drunk, baby?"

"Mm, don't know. What am I, Rick?"

"Very strong," he rumbled, gripping her ass and kneading. She only had on her panties, these cute pink silk things that made his hands hot. "Strong, but not drunk."

"Think maybe I am," she whispered in his ear. "But it's you that makes me feel so fucking good."

He laughed, but it choked in his throat, the way she writhed against him, the press of her fingers inside his pants. "I make you feel good, but the wine makes you curse."

"Did I?" she hummed. She was all hums, a hive of honeybees in his hands, crawling all over him, golden and delicious and stinging if he didn't do right.

"You said you felt fucking good."

"Fucking," she repeated, snapping the hard sounds. "You make me curse. Only word that makes sense. Fucking you."

He groaned and gripped her tighter, felt the insertion point of her gluteus muscle roll against her pelvic bone. She hissed and jerked her hips into him and they both moaned.

"Not - yet fucking me," he growled, pressing his teeth to her skin. Her neck tasted like silver stars, and when he licked across her throat she whined and shimmied in his hands. "But I can fuck you a little."

"A lot, a lot," she said mindlessly. He gripped the seam of her panties in a fist and rubbed his knuckles hard against her abs, then flared his fingers out until he could bury them between her legs.

She moaned and dropped her forehead to his shoulder, immediately began riding his hand, getting him closer. He had to use a thumb to spread her open for him, but it was the space of a heartbeat before he was buried deep, two fingers stretching her.

"Oh, God," she gasped. Her body shuddered but she was perfectly still, folded up in his lap. He rocked his hand and she moaned, a dirty work of her hips down into him. 

He found her rhythm easily, and even though she might have been drunk - she probably was a little - her body was perfectly timed to his. She rode his fingers and moaned his name, her hips working the only thing moving, and he gripped the back of her neck and breathed hard into her ear, urging her on.

He felt her. It was amazing how her pleasure layered over his, laid over his, so he felt everything through the focus of her own impending release. His own guts tightened, his fingers curled in the exact places she needed it, and even though she didn't ask, even though she didn't find voice for any of it, he felt her wild and urgent need and he fulfilled it.

His thumb teased to either side of her clit while he finger-fucked her, teased mercilessly, and inside himself he felt her burn.

"Oh, please, please!"

He rolled over her clit and she almost screamed - her orgasm that intense - but he'd known it was coming. He had felt it, and he had sealed his mouth over hers and swallowed her sounds as she'd writhed, pinned by him.

\-----

Castle kneaded his thumb and fingers into the back of her neck and pulled the lap blanket up over her shoulders, tucking it around her. She was back to humming, loose and lazy in his arms, trailing her fingers up and down his sides. But she couldn’t keep her head up.

“Babies?” she mumbled, sighing at his neck.

“Still there. Might be asleep.”

“Mm, good. No, wait, not yet. Gotta keep them up.”

“Naw, let it go, love. No point now. We can take them up to bed in a minute. Or I will, if you’re still - like this.”

“Drunk.” She grunted and then she might have giggled, but it was hard to tell.

“Are you?”

“Ya think,” she muttered.

“I think.” He nudged his nose down into her cheek, didn’t try to kiss her. But he did push his foot to the bottom of the bed until he bumped Wyatt.

The boy whined and curled the other direction, into his brother, which was a good sign.

“They’re gone,” he said in her ear. “So are you?”

“Gone, gone, gone,” she sighed.

“You’re kinda cute when you’re drunk, sweetheart.”

She huffed but didn’t move, and he leaned back against the headboard, wondered how loose she really was. Her body reformed around his, one of her knees came up and framed his ribs, and he tightened the blanket around her shoulders.

“Hey, honey?”

“Mm.”

“Was it Eastman who taught you reflexes?” He knew it wasn’t. “To make you so fast.”

“Huh, no, guess not.”

“Guess not? Who then?”

“The whip,” she mumbled. “Man with the whip.”

“The whip,” he murmured, his heart flinching. “Me too.”

“You?” She struggled to lift her head, her eyes that milky dark, soft like a deer. “He was an asshole.” A sigh and she dropped her cheek back to his shoulder. “I didn’t like him. Fought harder cause of it.”

“Yeah, I know that feeling.” He eased his thumb along the delicate bones of her vertebrae, her neck so slender and perfectly formed. “Fighting back is sometimes just fighting harder. Perfecting your technique until he can’t find a thing to criticize you for.”

“Until he just watches, silent.”

Had he done that? Black had watched her train, silent. Yeah, of course he had. The fucking bastard. “He never came to watch me,” he sighed.

“Give you too much power,” she said. Her words weren’t slurred so much as soft around the edges. “Let you know he’s invested, can’t do that. But me, had all the power. Behind the glass. Watching.” She shivered and he tightened his arm, pulling the blanket closer. 

“He was all about power,” Castle murmured. “Did the whip get you?”

She struggled in his arms, as if she was trying to lift up. “Not for long,” she hissed. “I’m good.”

“Yeah, baby, you are very good.”

“He got me a few times,” she said, as if mourning. Her head rolled on her neck and she whimpered. “It hurt.”

His heart twisted. “Yeah, sweetheart, it did. Mine healed up quick, but yours?”

“Lucky,” she sighed. Her eyes were closed, but her knee tightened at his ribs. “Bled a lot. Licked my shoulders. Hurt.”

“Your shoulders,” he said softly. His hand at her neck loosened, came down to skirt her bare skin. “Scars?”

“No, scars, no.” She let out a long sigh and her body seemed to sink into his. “But at my eye, think so. Don’t have mirrors to know how...”

He waited but she seemed to have drifted off. Castle skimmed his fingers at her shoulder blade. “Know how...?”

She stirred. “Know... how to fix it. Did best I could.”

Castle frowned. “Wait. You - mean you gave yourself first aid?”

“Bled too much, in my eyes.”

“No one gave you first aid?” he growled.

Kate startled, and he had to bite it back, nostrils flaring. But now she was more awake, aware, and she pushed off his chest, studying his face, confusion all over hers.

He cupped the back of her head and pulled her back down to him, but she was struggling now, trying to move.

“Hush, sweetheart, stay right here with me. Just-”

“What are you...”

“Just talking, that’s all. I had the same experience, with the whip, makes you faster. You’re as fast as I am, and that’s good. That’s good.”

“Good?”

“It’s very good, baby. Means you can keep up with me.”

She laughed, she actually laughed, but it was so drowsy he thought maybe she would fall asleep.

\-----


	15. Chapter 15

So warm. He was so warm and her body was lax and everything laid over him just right, fit just right, and she wanted to stay forever.

"You can," he said. "Stay right here, sweetheart." His fingers combed through her hair. "You falling asleep?"

"No, no," she mumbled. "Not tired. Just sleepy."

"Okay." His thumb at her ear. Made her loose. Everything loose. "Tell me about the whip, the man with the whip."

"Short," she sighed. She could picture him, but it was as if he was behind glass, or in a deep pool, and the more she leaned out to look, the less she could see. "Short man syndrome. Mean."

"Mm."

"I'm okay," she sighed. "Bled a lot but I'm okay."

"You patched yourself up," he was saying. His lips along her ear. "And then you went back the next day and showed him."

"Not every day, Castle," she whined, burrowing into his chest. Her fingers were cold but when she pressed her hands between him and her, the heat of his skin melted the ice. "Every other day. Don't make it worse than it was."

He grunted at her ear and she heard, from far off, the curse that circled his lips and disappeared like smoke. His palm at her nape was heavy, but those places on her shoulders tickled like phantoms. She used to have nightmares where the whip was coming at her back and she couldn't protect both the babies, couldn't make herself spread out enough to cover them both.

"Oh, God," he whispered. "That's an awful dream. Oh, honey-"

Was she talking? She didn't remember opening her mouth. "Can you read my mind?"

"No, no," he choked, a kind of laugh. "You give me just enough to know. You don't have to worry about that dream now though. Both our boys are just fine; you protected them. You got them both."

"Beautiful boys," she sighed. James had fallen asleep on Castle's thigh and then they'd shifted both down to the food of the bed and now - oh yes - she had drunk a glass of wine and she had never and things were underwater.

"Beautiful boys," he murmured at her ear. "You made them beautiful. Your heart, your eyes, your strength. How strong you are to stand up to the man with the whip."

"He was mean and I didn't like him and he hurt me. So I did it." She felt the words tumble right out of her mouth, like falling down stairs you didn't know were there. How surprising it was to be at the bottom. "I took the lash instead of moving out of the way. I don't know why I did that. Why I let myself..."

"You had a plan."

"No? I didn't plan. I just stood. I didn't move even though I wanted to get out of the way. I just - couldn't. Something wouldn't let me. Didn't want to dance for them anymore. Tired of dancing, Castle. I just - am so tired."

"Okay, okay, baby. You don't have to do that a second more. It's over. You took that last lash but you made it out."

"I let him hit me. And then I hit back."

"You hit back."

"I kicked his face in," she growled. Somewhere inside her, things were growling, gnashing their terrible teeth, but it was all under the deep dark lake. All of it was submerged and she could float along the top and only feel the faint disturbance of their claws as they tried to reach for her. 

"You kicked him. Sparring. You were sparring."

"He said I wasn't fast enough. I showed him."

"You showed him how fast you are, how indomitable. How strong."

"I am strong," she cried out.

"I know you are."

"I just couldn't take anymore. I couldn't. I don't want to do it anymore, Castle, please-"

"You won't. You will never have to do that." His hands cupped her face, her chin was being tilted up so that her eyes spilled open and met his. Like a lock. She couldn't move. "You will never be whipped again. You will never be put through the tests again. He's dead."

She swallowed, but whatever bubble of fear had risen up through her water, it had popped, leaving her placid again, drifting. Fear was a cloud in the sky and even though her face was turned towards it, it was too far away to rain. "I know." She blinked through the mist and saw his face, turbulent, beautiful, intense. "You either. He'll never touch you. You're mine."

"Yes. I am."

She closed her eyes and squirmed back down into him, pressed her forehead to his neck where it was warm. He let her go, he let her stop, and she wanted to rest right here, stay here for always.

But he wouldn't let it go. "You killed the man with the whip, Kate. Do you remember?"

"I know," she whined, shivering. She pressed in tightly and his body released heat, wave after wave, pushing her away from the bloated corpses in her pool. "I know I did. I meant to. I wanted to stop and he wouldn't let me stop. He just kept watching watching watching but I was ready. I'm so good. What more does he want from me?"

"He gets nothing. None of you. He's dead. He wanted only to push you as hard as you would go and then he wanted to watch you break so he could be the only one to put you together - build you back his way. But you fucking beat him."

"You build me back instead," she mumbled, her knees tightening at his hips. "You build. I like you better."

"No, honey. You're not broken."

"I think I am. Little pieces all over."

"Maybe you have some jagged pieces, but you're not broken. You're here with me, and you're alive and beautiful and you love our boys. And you show me love. I don't need to build you back, sweetheart. You've already built yourself. Every hole he punched in you, you found a way to stand taller, patch it up, be more. And I am so damn proud of you."

"You're proud of me?"

His hands cupped her face, stroked. She let out a slow breath, couldn't figure out how to be here, how to stay when everything was so liquid and melting.

"I'm proud of you."

"Oh, that's good," she sighed, eyes closing, sinking. "I needed that. Need you. Don't let me drown."

"Never."

\-----

She woke when he tried to ease her down to the mattress. She fumbled at his arm and clung to him, a moment's sharp fear burning so clearly in her eyes that he froze.

But then it was gone and she was sleepy-sweet and lifting up on her elbows. "What's going on?"

"Taking the boys upstairs," he murmured.

"No," she whined. "Wait."

He didn't move, but she untangled from the sheets and scrubbed her hands down her face. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be waiting for, or what she wanted to do instead.

"Um, my shirt?" she mumbled, squinting one eye to peer up at him.

He chuckled softly and snagged her shirt from the floor, handed it over. She was beautiful in the blue light from the television, how it highlighted her skin and the curves of her body, made the sharp places a little more sharp.

"Okay, ready," she said, dropping the shirt into place and standing up. She combed her fingers through her hair and shook it out, yawned, stumbled. "Think I'm ready."

"Ready for what?" he asked, following her to the foot of the bed.

She half turned, caught herself by clutching his arm. "Take the boys to bed. But shit, I'm kinda - melty."

"Melty, huh?"

"Might fall right through the floor."

"Probably not," he said, deadpan. "But if you start to, I'll catch you."

"Oh, good." She didn't seem to hear his tease, she just turned to the boys and sank to her knees before them. 

Before he could stop her, she was waking them up, her arms winding around each boy, gathering them closer together like she was going to pick them both up. Wyatt whined and opened his eyes, but instead of huffing at her and turning away (which he'd done to Castle ten minutes ago when Castle had moved him off his foot), the boy crawled up against her and laid down on her chest.

She rocked back, but Castle leaned in and caught James before she could drag him off the bed. Kate held Wyatt against her, murmuring things to the top of his head, so Castle carefully eased poor James into his arms. The boy was confused, and looking for her - his mother whose face he'd seen for half a second before his brother had interrupted. 

"Mommy wants to say good night," Castle tried to explain. "We're all going to bed. Aren't we, Kate?"

"All going to bed," she echoed, struggling to stand.

He offered her a hand, had to grip her by the upper arm to pull her to her feet. She swayed and then leaned fully against him, and now Wyatt reached out and curled an arm around James so they were all tangled together.

"Okay, guys," he laughed quietly. "This doesn't quite work. Mommy, can you hang on to Wyatt?"

She laughed back and breathed hotly at his shoulder. He didn't have a shirt on, and the touch of her at his skin was entirely distracting. "Think so. Yeah. Kinda drunk-stupid here, Castle. Your fault."

"My fault," he murmured, smiling. But when he stepped away from her, she was fine, standing on her own. Wyatt had to be broken away from his brother. "Soon enough, baby. Upstairs you guys can snuggle together in bed."

\-----

When she lowered Wyatt to the toddler bed, he turned over and came back for, needy hands and whimpering mouth.

"Hush, baby," she murmured, crouching low to reach him. She smoothed back that hair that always fell forward, stick straight like his daddy's. "Time for bed." She turned her head and saw Castle hovering in the darkness. "Hurry, babe. Lay him down. Wyatt won't sleep without him close."

Castle came immediately, crowding into her in the narrow space afforded by the raised sides of the toddler bed. She found herself leaning into his side as he laid James on the mattress, and Wyatt unlatched from her and wriggled in next to his brother.

Castle drew his arm around her and she sank into him, watching the boys draw comfort from each other. James had fallen back to sleep just during the short time Castle had carried him up, and Wyatt conformed his body to his brother's, snuggling in.

Castle reached out and skimmed a finger down Wyatt's back. "Like little wolf puppies," he chuckled. 

Kate's heart clenched and released, like a fist, like those moments when she used to lie on the cot in the quarter-dimmed lights and try to sleep, fight for sleep, and instead her chest would ache and her pulse flicker.

But now she knew what it was. Now she could lean forward and untangle the bunny from her arm to tuck it into Wyatt's. Now she could take the rag doll from Castle and lay it close to James's side. Now she could touch her babies and hover over them, give their cheeks soft kisses before she pulled away.

Castle had sat down on the floor and he drew her back into his lap, as if he knew exactly what was going on inside her head, and his arms came around her and his chin settled on top of her head and she curled into him with one hand lying on Wyatt's small foot.

She breathed and watched her babies breathe in the darkness, and Castle said nothing at all, nothing against her. He just held her loosely and made it possible to stay.

\-----

He would never make her leave, not if she didn't want to. He would move the boys' bed into their room if she needed that. He would camp out here with her until morning and he wouldn't say a word about it.

But after about five minutes, her body eased, as if her muscles were releasing, her tension unspooling. Her heart rate settled as well, but instead of her falling asleep - like he thought might happen - she stirred and pushed off his chest, sat up on her own.

She studied him for a moment, slid her hand up to touch his jaw. "You're tired," she murmured.

He - was. "I can stay up. Built to stay up."

"But you're tired," she sighed. She leaned into him and kissed his cheek, her fingers carding through the hair at his nape. It - felt so good. It felt so good to take comfort in her that he couldn't even hate himself for taking.

So much had been taken from her but at least she was giving this.

"You don't need to be sleeping on the floor up here," she sighed. Her fingers stroked and swirled, designs on his neck and down under his collar. His skin rippled where she touched, and she kissed his jaw. "Come on, baby. Let's go back to bed."

"Are you still drunk?" he mumbled, wrapping his arms tighter around her.

"Mm, just sleepy good."

Sleepy good. He could work with that. "Okay, then. Back to bed. Can I carry you?"

She laughed, kinda giggling, her mouth pressed against the place where his pulse jumped under his jaw. "Can you carry me?"

"I want to carry you," he mumbled, cheeks going hot. "I just - want to do things for you because you make me feel good."

She laughed again, laid her cheek to his shoulder. "Maybe I am drunk because - sure. Fine. Carry me."

He grinned and turned his face into her neck, nipped with his teeth at the skin baring her throat. "Thank you, love you-"

"Don't think you can overdo it," she grumbled, shoving on his chin to put him away.

His grin was too wide for his face, made him feel like an origami swan, folded tightly but unfurling wings at the same time. He hooked an arm under her knees and the other high at her shoulders, and then he got to his feet.

So easily. She was too light, her bones hollow like birds, hollowed out by three years caged. But it made it so damn easy to carry her out of the room and down the stairs, each step like a spring, his pleasure unwinding with his descent. Like the closer he got to their bed, the better it was, a magnet that drew him, a constant and unaltered need to have her. 

Have or love?

He wasn't sure his freshly-born heart knew what the difference was. What it should be. Because having was an ownership not unlike his father's, and that couldn't be what it was. 

He would not own her.

Kate kicked out a leg. "Put me down, big guy. You're daydreaming." 

He glanced down at her, realized he had paused at the foot of the bed. She was wriggling to get free, so he lowered an arm, let her slide down his body to the mattress. She was standing on the bed when she turned around for him, hooked her arms around his neck and tugged.

He stumbled into her, catching his hands on her thighs.

"Hey," she said. "Want me to wear you out?" Her eyebrows danced, her hips wriggled. "I mean - I want to wear you out. How about that?"

Castle grinned, shrugged at her. "I can deal."

\-----

Kate dragged him into her, tugging until he figured it out and climbed onto the bed with her. She grinned and pushed her knee into his chest and he sank back to his ass, all while she still towered over him, standing on the mattress.

Castle wrapped his hand around her ankle and lifted an eyebrow, and she saw an instant before it happened what he was going to do-

And then he jerked hard and flipped her down to her ass, sprawling over his knees and catching herself on her shins, and he chuckled and leaned forward to grab her.

Kate hummed and rearranged her limbs around him, settled over his lap so that he thought he had her where he wanted. She pressed her hands to his chest and scratched lightly along the fleshed lines of his abdominals, tipping forward to kiss the hollow below his throat.

“You smell good, like a man.”

He made an inquisitive noise but she felt the way his heart rate had kicked up. She teased her nails over his nipples and his hips jumped, his hands tightening into fists and gripping her shirt.

“Off,” he said roughly, tugging at the material. “Get this off.”

“You first,” she said, tilting her head. Her fingers slid under the waistband of his boxers and popped the elastic. He growled but lifted his hips, and she let her nails run over his flanks as she dragged down his boxers.

“Now you,” he growled.

She sat up, straddling his thighs so that she could see that magnificent cock, all for her, and she stripped the shirt off over her head. Castle immediately cupped her breasts, kneading and squeezing, thumbs harsh over her nipples.

She gasped, arching into that raw sensation, the way it cut right through the alcohol haze. Felt so good, and that he knew how to do this, how to get to her despite the fuzziness, and she pressed her hands down into the top of his thighs to lean forward into it.

“Fuck, yes,” he growled. His mouth caught on her clavicle, biting down so that she moaned. 

“My - my turn,” she breathed, tried to insist. 

“This is your turn.”

“No, no, my turn to be - be in control,” she mumbled, gripping his thighs so that her nails dug into his quads. 

“In control. You think I’m in control here?”

Her eyes fluttered open, met his lust-filled pupils.

He flexed his thighs under her hands and she rocked forward, her legs opening wider to brush her sex against him.

Castle grunted and slammed his head back against the headboard, knocking into it again and again as she rubbed herself against him.

“I think I’m in control,” she said darkly. “I think that’s exactly how you want it.”

“I want. Want it. Want you-”

“Then you might want to hold on.”

When his eyes flared open again, she scraped her nails down his inside thigh and roughly wrapped her hand around his cock. He bucked with a harsh rasp of his breath, she saw that wildness thrashing behind his eyes, and she loved it.

She twisted her hand down his cock and he bellowed, body going taut and rigid and all those wonderfully hard male terms that came down to this ferocious thing in her hand.

cock

His. His cock. Castle.

Castle.

“Y-yeah?” he gasped.

“This is mine,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the blunt head of his cock. “This is all mine, just for me.”

“You,” he whined, hips bumping up again. “You, you-”

“Just for me,” she breathed, leaning in against him so that her body pressed to his, her thigh pushing between his legs.

Castle moaned, gripping her harder, at her ribs, her hips, her ass and thighs. Any place he could get a handle on her, he did. And she laid herself against his torso and rubbed his cock between her hand and the outside of her thigh, the base of him touching her stomach.

“Oh, God,” he groaned.

She began to stroke him, slow and purposeful, letting her own hips rock against the wide and strong plane of his thigh. 

“Oh, God, I can feel you,” he husked at her ear. His hands were mapping her back, heavy and clumsy, gripping her as if in echo of her grip on him. “You’re so wet, Kate.”

It was something about her name on his lips like that, her name both reverent and awed and also somehow broken. How he wanted her, and how much he gave up to her in that wanting.

She shuddered as his mouth opened at her jaw, a kind of kiss he couldn’t complete - not when she was touching him like this, and she knew that, and yet the way he tried, and her name in that rough edge, it knotted in her sex and drew tighter.

“How are you so beautiful?” he rasped. His fingers tangled in her hair and accidentally pulled her head back. Her throat bared, her chin up, and the sensation of choking up tightened her ever more, just that hard edge to the swollen want.

Her fingers worked harder, a little more trick to it, twisting and squeezing, nails dragging the under-

“Fuck.”

Castle crushed her down against him, his hips thrust into her fist, and then he erupted into orgasm.

\-----

Had she just fallen asleep against him?

Holy fuck, she had.

One of the fiercest orgasms of his life and she had fallen asleep.

He really didn’t want to move. Or move her either. So he grabbed the corner of the sheet and wiped them off, her thigh and his, her hand, all up against her ribs where his come had jerked out of his body. She didn’t even stir through the whole process, and when he was done, he yanked the sheet half out of the bottom to keep it away from her.

She sighed his name in her sleep and nuzzled down between his arm and side, practically in his armpit.

Castle paused in rearranging the covers, touched the top of her head. “You’re a strange little wild thing, aren’t you, love?” She didn’t respond, of course, and he hadn’t expected her to wake, but it was nice to know - to feel - how much she kittened right up to him despite the wildness in her.

Castle scooted down to lie on the pillow, arranging her carefully at his side, just enough of himself bearing her down. Make her feel safe. She squirmed in her sleep and her fingers uncurled on the sheet, trusting like a child. Like their sons.

He was going to fall asleep too, he realized. It was that strong. His eyes burned and now that he was horizontal, he couldn’t make himself move.

He would need a full night, he thought. And he hoped he woke before her.

But that was all he had time for before he fell asleep.

\-----


	16. Chapter 16

Castle woke sharply, instantly, and oriented to the room - and the woman in bed with him.

Who was in the throes of some kind of nightmare.

His instinct was to jerk back and give her space, the sweat that poured from skin, the way she thrashed, but the past few weeks of intelligence told him that was exactly the wrong thing to do. Instead, he moved into her, settling his body on top of hers, those places where he had come away during sleep - chest to her back, hips to hips, tangling their legs. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his chin to the top of her shoulder.

"It's okay, you're safe," he murmured quietly. He hoped only to insinuate his voice in her dream, to reassure her until she could fall into a more untroubled sleep. "I'm here, Kate, and I will always have your back. Let me fight for you."

A whine came out of her throat, her body shaking, clammy and yet sweating. He tightened his arms around her and slid his knee between her thighs, feeling her skin against his skin everywhere.

"I've got you, love. I won't let it happen to you, ever again. You're safe. You're not there. He's dead."

At that, her body gave a great shudder and sunk into the mattress, as if being released. He kissed behind her ear, the damp place at her hairline where the sweat had collected. He wound his arms tighter around her and curled his knee up, and he held her, murmuring nothing and everything.

After a while, he thought it was over, that the dream had let go, and that he had her now. She was in that same heavy sleep that he'd seen the boys fall into, that sleep he himself never got, and she was quiet again.

But having her in his arms, pressed limb to limb, was comforting to him as well. He felt better with her here, like some orbit had been off its axis and now it was being put to right.

Castle took in a shaky breath, the scent of her body - sweat and sex and alcohol, which shouldn't be so damn amazing, but it really was. It was amazing, and he wanted it to never end.

\-----

In the end, they had no choice but to take the boys with them.

She thought they looked really cute and clever in their almost-matching clothes: dark blue jeans and canvas shoes, their screen print t-shirts tucked in. James had a big blue diamond with an arrow on his grey shirt - some logo for a restaurant the Eastman’s had taken them to, (the blue made his eyes so vivid and alert) while Wyatt was wearing the Wild Things shirt Carrie had picked up for him in the city. 

They looked adorable. And she was stupidly proud to have picked out their clothes and combed their hair and wiped the smudges of scrambled eggs and jelly off their faces so that none of breakfast wound up on their clean outfits.

It was probably stupid, but it was also a part of being their mom - a part she’d been unable to experience until now. Made being mommy a little more real, too, and at least choosing clothes wasn’t frightening.

Deciding to bring the boys to the vet’s training school was. But not bringing them was worse - the boys not coming meant Castle was alone with them and she was driving herself and she couldn’t look at that square on yet. She couldn’t project what that meant, or what she might do when she got that way, or how it would touch her in places that were best left dark.

Dormant.

“Sit still, Wy, I’m trying to buckle you in.”

Beckett snapped back to here and now as Castle struggled with Wyatt in his car seat. She leaned across James to tug lightly on Wyatt’s ear, a kind of signal they’d always had, and Wyatt whined back at her but dropped back down in his seat.

“We’re going to see the puppy,” she told him, finding his eyes and holding his gaze. He seemed to do better if she concentrated on him, if she wasn’t distracted. Maybe he needed to feel her with him, right here with him. “You’ll like to play with him - or well, maybe not yet. But soon.”

Castle shot her a brief smile and tested the harness to be sure it held, then nodded to her. James patted her hand where it rested on his seat, and she leaned back out again, brushing a kiss on his cheek on her way out. 

“Alright, guys, ready to go?” She wriggled her fingers at Wyatt to show him she was heading around, and then she closed the door on James’s side. She popped open the passenger door and climbed in just as Castle was starting the engine. He turned and braced himself on her headrest, checking behind the car as he backed them up.

“Mom-my,” Wyatt called. “Me. Me. Me.”

She opened the bag at her feet and pulled out the snacks Castle had made, rifled through the junk they’d accumulated in New York until she found Wyatt’s bunny. She passed it back and he gasped like she had made it appear out of thin air, his arms flung wide to embrace the little thing.

“Mommy?” James said hopefully, that little quiet voice.

“I have yours, baby,” she promised, dipping back in the bag until she pulled out the elephant Castle had bought at the same time as the bunny. 

She turned around with it just as the car pulled out onto the road, and the bump made Wyatt giggle. James just looked at the elephant, reaching out a hesitant hand for it.

“Here, baby, I didn’t want the rag doll to fall apart. It’s an elephant. Daddy bought him for you.”

James brought the elephant in on top of the harness at his seat. “Daddy?” he echoed, lifting his eyes to where Castle’s seat was in front of him.

“Yeah, Daddy,” she encouraged. “Rag dolls are both at home, guys. I think they’re getting kind of ratty.”

“And Wyatt hides his to keep it safe,” Castle added, smirking at her. “But I’ve been thinking I’d send them to a tailor I have on retainer; he can stitch them together so they don’t unknot all the time.”

“How long would that take?” she said carefully, chewing on her lip. “Because I’m not sure James can sleep without his.”

“We could do it one at a time maybe?” Castle frowned. “But yeah, good point. We’ll see.”

“We’ll see,” she murmured. He wanted to stitch together those sweatshirt pieces so the rag dolls stopped falling apart. It was that important. “James, honey, the elephant is good too. Isn’t it?”

James gave the thing a funny look, but he didn’t let go of it either. From beside him, Wyatt chortled and called out for her. “Deuce! Mommy, deuce!”

“I think that’s juice,” Castle laughed.

She grinned back at him. “I think so. Alright, alright, deuce it is.” She found both boys’ cups and handed them back as well, and when they were settled, she could finally turn back around.

“Good job, Mommy,” Castle said softly, reaching across the console to take her hand. She felt the warmth of his palm against hers and his fingers taking hers up, and then the slow glide of his thumb across the webbing of her own.

She let out a breath and shifted to put her shoulder to the back of the seat, pulling one knee up. Their clasped hands rested in the cradle made by her lap, and his elbow leaned on the center console just so he could stay there.

Castle flashed her a look, fondness and generosity, and then turned his eyes back to the road.

But she saw it all anyway, and she couldn’t help the way it lifted her, made even the scary parts not so terrible.

They were going to introduce the boys to their wolf.

She hoped it wasn’t the worst mistake of their newfound lives.

\-----

Castle was pulled aside by the vet the moment he set James on his feet inside the training center. 

“Look, maybe I wasn’t clear about where we’re at in this process,” Dr Mason said, rubbing his chin. “This little pup isn’t anywhere close to child-friendly.”

“Oh, I realize that,” he said, glancing back to where Kate was bent over tying Wyatt’s shoe. He still held James by the hand and the boy had leaned his forehead into the back of his leg. “They’ll be good.”

“I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about the pup. It’s not going to do well with-”

“I won’t let the boys touch it if you think they’ll hurt it.”

Dr Mason frowned at him. “Are you... no. I can’t - allow it. For liability reasons alone.”

“They won’t touch it,” he said easily. “No problem. Kate and I will be the only ones-”

“That’s not what I’m saying here, Sam. I am worried about those two babies being in a room with a wild animal.”

Castle straightened up, realizing now how it looked to the man. “No, I... yeah. I see what you’re saying, but - you did say Wolf has to get used to us. To all of us. He’ll be living with the boys too, package deal.”

Dr Mason rubbed his chin and glanced over to where Wyatt was touching the fish tank in the lobby, putting his face up against the glass and peering in at the strange creatures inside. Castle sighed, knowing it didn’t look that great.

But these kids were serious about following orders, and they could be made to stay perfectly still if it came down to it.

And they were super. If the dog bit them or scratched them - as a puppy - wasn’t that better than biting or scratching as a full-grown wolf? “I appreciate your concern, Dr Mason. But their mother and I have talked about this. Better that the boys know now to be cautious of the thing, to learn their lesson when it comes to the animal, than later when it’s older and bigger and stronger. And like I said, this thing is coming home to live with us.”

Dr Mason spread his hands wide. “Fine. I’ve got some release forms for you to sign and the we’ll go in. I’m adding the little ones to the list though.”

If it was a threat or warning, Castle didn’t heed it. He just signed where it said to sign and handed the pen to Kate to let her do the same.

And then Mason was leading them back through a security door and into what looked like a futuristic hospital - but every room held a variety of sleek, padded cages in neoprene and wire with special feeding slots and water bottles. It looked nice and not like a damn warehouse, and Castle already felt better about it.

Down a long hall filled with such surgical and medical rooms and then to the back where a bigger room held dogs in the process of training or rehab. A good handful had cones over their heads or a limb to prevent the dog from biting or chewing on stitches or an infected place, but most of the dogs looked to be healing or recovering well.

“Here’s the wolf pup,” Mason said, nodding to a door. A wide glass window was inserted into the top half and it was Dutch, opening up and keeping the bottom closed so they could look inside. 

The room was about the size of a short track, long and narrow, with benches running on either side at human height. The wolf had a bed in one corner - no cage - and chew toys scattered around. 

But it was curled in a tight ball in the corner, teeth flashing when it saw the group at the doorway.

“Gloves,” Mason said, handing them out. “Those boys too.”

Castle watched Kate pull hers on and move straight for the half door, leaving Castle to bend down and outfit the boys with oversized leather gloves. Wyatt giggled at the sensation on his hands, flopped them back and forth in front of his eyes.  
Castle grabbed his wrists and ducked to look at Wyatt in the face. “These stay on. You hear me, Wyatt? For the dog. You have to keep them on.”

“Ok, Daddy!”

Mason looked startled, but Castle ignored him, instead gave Wyatt a quick kiss on his cheek. “Good job, my man. Very good.” He turned to James and tugged the leather gloves onto those small hands and James only studied them, experimenting with open and closing his fingers.

Castle stood up, taking each boy by the hand, and he paused in stunned surprise when he looked inside the room.

Kate had coaxed the wolf puppy out of its corner and into her lap where it was nuzzling its nose between her elbow and side, hiding its face against her ribs.

His throat closed up and he glanced to Mason. The vet looked just as stunned.

“I told you,” Castle said quietly. “We’ll be just fine.”

Mason turned wide eyes to him.

Castle opened the door himself and pulled the boys in after him, glancing to Mason. “You want to show me the exercises we’re supposed to be doing with him?”

Mason started forward, shaking his head. “Of course. Yes. Of course.”

\-----

“This shouldn’t be possible,” Mason kept saying. “I don’t understand. Are you sure the mama was a wolf? Maybe more wild dog-”

“Wolf,” she murmured, stroking her fingers over the cub’s ruff, smoothing back along his spine. “Hey, Wolf. That’s your name.” The poor thing had been soft muzzled, but he could stick his tongue out and lick along her elbow, cowering. “You’re gonna be fine.”

“How’s his leg?” Castle said softly. They’d been warned to keep their voices low, soft, to not look at the pup in the eyes. 

“Healing, it’s healing. Might be stiff. Little crooked, if he keeps trying to run on it.”

“Run,” Kate murmured.

“Taking on a wolf dog is a lot more of a challenge than you might think. These things need to be given miles of work a day - trotting or running, six to eight - as well as not being tied to a leash, open space.”

“We can do that,” she said quietly. “We have the land. Ri-Right, Sam?” She had almost called him Rick. 

But he gave her a wink and nodded. “We have the land. And I run-”

“I’d run with him,” she said, stroking the dog’s back.

“Okay, well, not just that wild energy, but these dogs don’t belong inside. They won’t be able to live you and your - remarkably well-behaved sons. I know they’re being very good right now, but the day will come when this thing will bite them. Or someone-”

“The boys are our responsibility,” Castle said quietly. But he kept the tension out of his voice and Dr Mason rubbed the back of his neck, shook his head.

Kate stroked under the wolf’s jaw, along the material of the muzzle, and the cub mewled in his throat and dug back under her arm, shaking again. She stopped trying to acclimate him to having his mouth touched, and moved instead to his back paws, going slowly.

“Careful, careful,” Mason warned. “He puts out his claws and those things are sharp.”

She hated having the gloves on to do this, hated it, and so she took them off, putting her fingers into Wolf’s fur and sighing. The thing shivered and huddled closer to her, and she knew, she knew it wouldn’t bite. Not just because of the muzzle, but because it was - not there.

Wolf wasn’t there right now, though he might be some other time, and that was a feeling she understood too. Too worn out, to beaten down to snap back, just enduring.

“Babe,” Castle murmured.

She lifted her head and saw Mason had leaned forward as if to snatch the puppy away from her, arrested only by the fact that Wolf seemed fine.

Mason leaned back. “I - don’t understand. He acts like a regular wolfdog with me, but with you he’s...”

“He must be tired,” Kate said weakly. She looked at Castle for help and he winced, sinking down to the floor with a hand on each boy. 

“Tired,” Mason said, shaking his head.

“She has a tender heart for wild things,” Castle sighed, speaking to Mason. “They all come to her. Don’t try to figure it out. Just let it be.”

Kate used her now-bare fingers to smooth back the fur from the wolf’s face, his heartbreaking eyes, the narrow range of his snout. Sadder somehow with the muzzle, the ears that twitched to every sound.

Castle had settled the boys in his lap and they were being very good, sitting still and not talking - what had been so normal for them for so long. Kate stroked the wolf, over and over again, a constant press of her fingers, petting him until she felt him no longer flinch at the beginning of her stroke. Castle did the same to her, she realized; he could bring her down with just his hand at the nape of her neck.

She glanced to James, and nodded down to the wolf, finding Castle’s gaze again.

He nodded and nudged James, and Kate kept her hands tender and cradling, kept the cub close to the heat of her body and the slow thump of her heart.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Mason breathed. “No matter how hypnotized you have him.”

“I know you don’t,” Kate said quietly. “But - I know my son.”

She knew James, and how he was reserved like her, how he did something to all of them too, he did something that settled them. “Jay. Come sit with me.”

“This is really not a good idea,” Mason said again, but he didn’t raise his voice, didn’t let tension creep in.

And yes, Kate knew she wasn’t - a normal mother. But her sons weren’t normal children, not the least because they’d been forced on her. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said softly, nudging her nose into James’s soft neck. “Sit here with me. Be gentle, baby.”

James crouched before her, moving a little more swiftly than she’d like, but with the wolfdog’s face buried in against her elbow and side, it didn’t react. James crept forward and reached out a little hand.

“Sit, James. Here with me.” 

She lifted one hand from Wolf and took James by the wrist, pulled a little. He was the deft one, and he picked up his feet and crawled into her lap with the cub, curled into her chest with a little space between them.

“Mommy,” he whispered, fingers curling up and releasing. He wanted to touch.

“Very gently, baby,” she told him. “He’s scared.”

James leaned in and touched Wolf’s rump. The poor thing yelped and whined under her arm, but she stroked down the top of his head, and kept James’s hand there, making the wild thing get used to the little fingers, their inconsistent pressure.

“Mommy me?”

“Not yet, Wyatt,” she said, not even raising her voice.

The thing was trembling, but Kate stroked softly, again and again, keeping James’s hand there. 

“Pet him, baby,” she whispered, nudging a kiss into James’s cheek. “Can you make him feel safer? Let him know you’re okay, you won’t hurt him.”

“Mommy, me,” Wyatt said again.

“You heard Mommy,” Castle murmured to him. “You wait for your turn. It’s not bunny. It’s a real animal.”

“Good boy,” she told James. “Just like that. Pet him down so you don’t ruffle his fur.”

James petted the cub even while the poor thing whined and trembled, and it wasn’t working, whatever James usually did. Maybe he didn’t understand or maybe he didn’t know how to do it with an animal, but either way, it wasn’t calming the wolfdog, it was only something he was enduring.

“Okay, baby, good job, good job. Wyatt’s turn, now.” She tucked James’s hand back into his chest and kissed his cheek, nudging him off her lap. He scrambled up, reached out and patted the wolf before she could stop him.

Wolf yipped and turned his head towards James, and she saw where the thing would have snapped at James’s fingers if he hadn’t been muzzled. 

“Mommy, me-” Wyatt was already wriggling out of Castle’s grip and coming for her. Castle lurched forward, snagged Wyatt by he back of his t-shirt, yanked him back.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, but it made the wolfdog jerk to its feet and try to get off her lap, only its leg was still splinted and not responding correctly. Wolf collapsed back to her lap, Wyatt leaned out with a whine, and so Kate finally reached for him, switching with Castle.

She was relieved to note that James didn’t seem concerned by the wolfdog’s snapping at him; in fact, James looked really pleased with himself as he settled back on Castle’s lap. She could hear him talking to his daddy dog, daddy, dog - that word came clear enough.

Kate had her hands full with the wolfdog half on her lap and Wyatt on his knees and peering down right in the dog’s face.

“Hey, wait, baby, hang on-”

She didn’t get the chance to drag him back. 

Wolf whimpered and lifted his head, the tail swished across her knee, and then suddenly the cub was flopping over into Wyatt’s lap.

If he had a lap. He was on his knees so the puppy missed and tumbled to the floor but still nudged right up into Wyatt, his whole body wriggling.

Well, Wyatt’s too. They were both wriggling with pure - connection.

Oh.

Oh, connection. The thing on the MRI that was the same in them.

She lifted her eyes to Castle and saw he had just made that same leap.

“Mommy, me,” Wyatt said happily, arms around Wolf almost like he strangled that bunny.

“Okay, okay, so you take after me, baby. But still, be gentle, let’s be gentle. Come here, Wy.”

Wyatt wriggled closer, practically dragging Wolf with him. And while Wolf whined in his throat and nudged his nose out of Wyatt’s grasp, a paw coming up to scratch at Wyatt’s arm, he didn’t use claws, he didn’t try to actually get free.

Kate supported Wolf’s flopping body, the thing was so small anyway at only five weeks old, and she carefully lifted Wyatt and the dog into her lap.

She let out a slow breath and put her chin to the top of Wyatt’s head. “You’re so good, baby. You did so good. You knew exactly, didn’t you?”

“Mommy me.”

“Wolf and you. Can you say Wolf?”

“Uff.”

“Wolf, that’s right. Can you pet Wolf? Do it softly, like this.” She stroked the top of Wolf’s head and Wyatt followed suit, beaming up at her when he managed it.

“Well,” Mason interrupted them, quietly clearing his throat. “Thought I’d seen everything. Never - seen this. Hot damn.”

Castle chuckled and the sound made the wolf yelp. But then Wyatt bent in over the puppy and hugged him right against his face.

And that little tongue snaked out and licked Wyatt’s nose.

\-----

"That went well," he said, eager for a victory for her sake.

Kate was smiling that secret smile and she nodded shortly, let her hair fall forward. But she pushed it back behind her ear and shared that smile with him. "It really did."

Castle had one boy by the hand; she had the other. Wyatt was leaning hard against her shoulder, sleepy. It was nearly lunch, he figured, and he raised a hand to caress the back of the boy's head. "Wolf likes you. And Wyatt."

"He likes you too," she said. As if to appease him. "He's just scared and lonely. He wants his mama."

"That's sad," he sighed. Scared and lonely and wanting mom. How fucking well he identified with that, even if it was far back there, barely distinguishable. How well she identified, how close to the surface that must be for her. "Damn, that's really sad. His mom left him."

"But you know Doc Mason said the wolf got kicked out of her social group for those two, for fraternizing with a lowly dog, smelling like a dog. So..." She shrugged.

"She still left him," he muttered. He hoisted James into his arms and opened the back door, settled the kid in his seat. "She left him to die."

Kate was very quiet. Long enough that he noticed, her eyes turned down to Wyatt where she was buckling him into his car seat. 

Castle realized then what it sounded like, where her issues collided with his. He couldn't come right out and say to her, I'm talking about me not you; you didn't do anything wrong because the words would mean nothing. "I mean, I get that it was an impossible choice, that she had the other pup to think about, and that makes sense, that is at least a kind of reason. But my mom only had me. You know? Mom." He let the bitterness invade the word, bitterness that was new since he'd met Kate, had seen Kate be mother and mom and mommy to these boys. "She could have done something to save me. She didn't have to leave me with him to - to die."

Kate's eyes jerked up to his, horror spilling through her gaze and connecting hotly with him, like a skewer. "Oh, God, Castle."

"I-" He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably and tugged on the buckle at James's seat. Suddenly it wasn't so great talking about himself. Suddenly his years of panel-discussion therapy and post-mission debrief were clogged in his throat.

He shut the door and came around the other side, handed Kate the keys.

She took them, but her eyes searched his.

"You drive," he said thickly. He turned for the passenger seat and got in without looking at her, or even really seeing at all, and he heard the silence as she got in on the driver's side. 

Kate started the engine and leaned between them for the boys' bag.

"No, I-" He cleared his throat and took the bag back from her. "I got it, Kate." He passed back bunny and elephant and then gave poor worn out Wyatt his blanket as well.

Her hand came to his knee and squeezed. "I don't know what to say about your mother to make it - not hurt. I don't think there is anything that can be said. But if you think about her, think - about me. The things I did to... maybe your mother couldn't even save herself, and this was the only way she could find to save you."

He set his jaw, but his throat worked as if he were swallowing past a knot. He couldn't get back to the true purpose of the things he'd said, but he clutched at her hand until he slowly untangled the path back to the point.

"My mother, Colin's mother, Alex and Ben - four women - at least four, who couldn't do it. Couldn't stand up to him, couldn't fight him, couldn't get out without... leaving us behind."

Kate made a noise, low and - and wild - and when he looked at her she was glowering. Fierce. She had that quality again that made her kin to a wolf no one would ever tame, and he wondered if that was it. If that was what had saved her, and saved their sons as well - Kate Beckett's indomitable will, inherited through her genetics and her imprint and her fierce possession and love for them - if that was the difference, then he would gladly, gratefully take the consequences.

He would fucking love the fallout, whatever it was, however she had to cope. Eight miles of running a day, whatever that looked like in human terms, then that was what he would joyfully do.

"They should never have left you," she said then. "Never. You should never have been left. I can't help but see Wyatt when I think of you as this little boy, how cheerful and clever and charming, and oh God, no one should ever have left you."

Damn. He'd meant only to make her feel better and now-

She'd turned him inside out with it.

\-----


	17. Chapter 17

When Kate pulled into the drive and the Jeep bumped over the gravel, Castle seemed to have normalized again. She sneaked him a look but he had turned to check on Wyatt and all she caught was the back of his head. He had been so quiet while she drove the forty-five minutes back to the castle, not even saying anything when she had been forced to brake hard at a woman stopped to turn. Kate hadn't been paying the strictest attention, but Castle hadn't commented.

There was something to be said for how he trusted her, but it didn't make her trust herself. At least now he was chatting softly to Wyatt and chuckling under his breath, turning around with a smile. 

She parked at the turnout near the bridge and cut the engine, unbuckled her seatbelt.

"Well, we have a dog," she said, shrugging into the quiet tick tick of the engine cooling. She glanced at him and he was smirking, lips quirking up, that sparkle to his eyes.

"We have a something," he said. "Not sure you could call that shivering thing a dog."

"Wolf," she said, smiling back.

"Wolf!" James called from the backseat. "Wolf, Wolf!"

"Wow," Castle laughed, turning to look. "He's excited. James, hey my man, you like Wolf?"

"Wolf!"

"Guess so." She opened the car door and shot Castle another studying look, but he was already climbing out on his side and opening the back door to get James. She did the same, meeting Wyatt's sluggish, smiling face. His lashes batted at her as he lifted his arms for her. "You flirting with me, baby?"

"Urt, Mommy."

"Hm, you don't need to flirt me up to get what you want. You have me already," she murmured, undoing the straps as she talked. Mindless really; she wasn't thinking about Wyatt so much as Castle, how he'd talked about his mother and himself before they'd gotten in the car. 

She wished, sometimes, she could be more like that. Just say it and have it out there and move on. He was fine now; he was carrying James and their bag of stuff to the leaf-strewn bridge, waiting on her and Wyatt.

"I should put you down so you can walk, but you're so tired. Ready for lunch and then a nap?"

Wyatt hummed against her and buried his face in her neck, sighing softly. She kissed his cheek and patted his back, tucked bunny in close to him before she shut the door. When she came around the other side of the car, she met Castle before the bridge.

He set James on his feet and let the boy run on ahead of them; James wasn't tired at all, it seemed, and he ranged forward, trailing a hand along the wooden bars of the railing. 

Castle put his hand low at her back and ushered her down the bridge. "You want to ask me something, Kate, just ask."

She huffed, glancing at him over a sleepy Wyatt. "Not really. Just - wondering how come it's so easy for you to talk."

"Compared to you?"

"Yeah. I don't have words for - anything. It comes time to talk and it's like all I can do is feel. I can't - say."

"I've had a lot of years of debriefing."

"What's that? I mean, I know in theory it's a rundown of the assignment or whatever, but what does it look like?"

Castle unlocked the door for them, brushing his hand to the top of James's head and nudging him over the threshold. "Well, I'd get back and have to go through a series of evals. Heart, endurance, breathing. And then psychological testing - just to judge my performance against my normal parameters."

"Like - they thought it would degrade or something?" She realized how it sounded the second it came out of her mouth and she bit her lip, shook her head at him. "Not complaining here, Castle. Your performance has only gotten better. Just - the elixir. Did they think that would degrade with use?"

He was laughing though, scooping up James and sniffing at him. "Whew, you stink, buddy. Let me change diapers and then start lunch. Wyatt, you too, I bet. And no, Kate, they didn't think it would degrade. They wanted to be sure I wasn't emotionally compromised."

She followed him into the bedroom with Wyatt, watched as he laid James onto the floor and dragged a pile of diapers out from under the bed. Wipes too. He had a little stash going. "And all those tests proved you weren't?"

"Well, I guess so. I knew how to beat the psych evals. I knew what the right answers were, you know? But your heart rate and function can indicate stress, your physical strength and peaks can reveal hidden problems. So I couldn't hide. And when those results came back, the panel of psychologists and psychiatrists and whoever else was there - they'd go over those things and then grill the fuck out of me."

"Uck!" James said happily, chewing on his hand while Castle changed his diaper. 

Kate held sleepy Wyatt in her arms and mulled that over. "So - you had to talk. You had to say shit, whatever they needed to hear."

"Yeah, and of course, I could've given them that - what they wanted to hear. But then they'd redo the tests and those would tell on me. But, well-" He flashed her a sneaky look. "I got good at making my body do what I wanted it to do. Biofeedback. It works to a point. And then after that, I learned."

"You learned what?"

"How to shut it off," he said softly. He patted James's belly and pulled the boy's pants back up. "Now you, Wy. Come here." He took the tired boy out of her arms and laid him on the floor, and Kate grabbed James's hands and pulled him into her lap.

He didn't want to cuddle; he wanted to climb. He got a foot onto her thigh and hiked halfway up her shoulder, distracting her from what she'd wanted to ask Castle about. She couldn't remember, and now the boy was both arms around her neck and bouncing on his feet, cooing in her ear something she couldn't understand.

"Okay, baby, you're very excited. You already love Wolf, I know." She kissed his wriggling body all over and he giggled, a sound like he couldn't help himself, and she grinned into his face. "I made you laugh. You like that?"

She did it again and again, and then she realized Castle had Wyatt finished and in his arms, and they were both watching her.

Like it was a revelation.

Well, not a whole lot of giggles had gone on in that facility. So.

Yeah.

\-----

He was making out with her in the kitchen before the stove like they couldn’t help themselves. Hiding out even though they were in plain view of the boys at the kitchen table. But her mouth was so soft, and wicked, and she kept making that noise-

Her fingers played at the waist of his pants, made his brain short circuit. Boys were eating lunch, mac and cheese and small-cut green beans, but he couldn’t care at all about lunch when she touched him like this.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned.

“Impossible.”

She rubbed against him, pressing her hips to his. Her fingers found bare skin at his lower back and sneaked down, just above his ass. He grunted and caught her by the waist, crushing her closer. Always closer.

“When is fucking nap time,” he growled.

“Now. Can’t it be now?” she panted back. Her mouth dragged from his as she turned her head. Her little whimper made his guts curl. “They’re still eating. Damn.”

“You’re starting to curse like me,” he murmured, another smudged kiss at her jaw.

“Only about sex,” she muttered. “Have you noticed?”

“Yeah. It’s fucking hot.”

“You’re fucking hot,” she said, growling and baring her teeth as she came in for another kiss. She pulled it from him, sucking on his tongue and stroking hard. He grunted and felt himself swaying, like his knees were suddenly weak.

She pushed him back to the counter and spread her legs over his thigh, draping herself at him. Began to rock.

“Fuck, baby, no, you are hot. You’re intensely gorgeous when you go at it like that.”

She moaned and pressed her face to his chest, her teeth scraping his nipple through the shirt. He clutched hips and worked back to her ass, kneaded the firm glutes. She was riding his thigh now, with abandon, wanton, not caring at all that he was watching.

“Get yourself off,” he husked at her temple. She shivered and clutched the back of his waistband, began digging her fingers down to his ass. 

He stiffened his thigh and brought it up into her on the next rock forward. She moaned when he hit her clit just right, the material of her jeans digging into that spot. 

“Come on, baby. You need to come for me. Right here. Against my leg like you can’t control it.”

“I can’t,” she whined. 

“Can’t what? Come? or control it?”

Kate’s neck arched, her mouth falling open. “Con-trol it,” she gasped.

And then she dug her sex down against him and ground into her orgasm.

\-----

She felt, vaguely, his arms coming around her upper back and pressing her down to his chest. His feet were braced wide and her thighs were still straddling one of his legs, but she was utterly boneless over him.

He rubbed her back and the sharp point of his chin came to the top of her head, his embrace so full, so deep, that it made her eyes close in pleasure.

She had a sense of wanting to return the gesture, but she found she couldn't move. "Sorry," she mumbled, arms sliding around his waist. "Not sorry."

He chuckled. His fingers pressed into the points of muscle along her spine, digging deeper as she groaned, working her loose, working her down. "Turns me on to turn you on," he murmured.

She laughed a little, a breath escaping more than anything, and she realized she could feel his heart beating under her cheek. Not as fast as it had been, and slowing even now, coming down. She definitely felt his arousal at her hip, where she was pressed against him, but she could make no move to do anything about it.

"Nap time soon enough," he said, as if he could read her mind.

She hummed and nodded against him, sinking deeper.

Suddenly his voice lifted up and over, stern. "Wyatt, sit down in your chair."

She opened her eyes and saw Wyatt had frozen half crouched in the chair, spoon in one hand, mac and cheese clinging to it. He sank back to his haunches, watching them with a little sneaky smile on his face.

"Mommy!"

"All the way down, Wyatt," she told him. Her voice sounded like there was too much air in it. She sounded like she had just come on his daddy's thigh. "On your ass, baby."

Wyatt wriggled but finally sat back down, shoved his spoon towards his mouth. He was better than James, but he still missed, and mac and cheese dribbled down his shirt. "Mommy! You!" 

"Yeah, Wyatt," Castle called. "Mommy's very happy right now, guys. So just give her a second."

She laughed, swatting at him for that, but she couldn't deny it. "I don't want to even move."

"So don't," he said easily. "Wyatt, use your fingers instead of the spoon, you little show off. Like James. Yeah, your fingers. Put the spoon down."

He did, and the thing clattered along the table and fell off to the floor with a rattle. Both boys jerked and wild eyes came up to them. That terrible tension.

But Kate was just - so blissed she couldn't rouse to it, couldn't respond. And it seemed to infect them because the moment James's eyes connected with hers, he relaxed, his submissive posture melting, his head tilting as if he was studying her.

"Mommy?" he said softly. And like an echo, Wyatt parroted, "Mommy!"

"Leave the spoon," Castle called to them, his arms still around her, his fingers digging into the knot at the base of her skull. "Doesn't matter. Use your fingers, guys."

She groaned as the knot released, spilling hot relief down her spine. Her eyes slammed shut and Castle laughed, cupping the back of her head and kissing the top of her cheek. 

"Feel good, honey?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "They okay?"

"They're fine. James is watching you - little looks - but he's eating his food again."

"Good, good," she mumbled. "Because I really want to stay right here."

"So stay," he said softly. She heard the melting in his voice too, the way his whole body curled around her, into her. "Stay, baby. I want that too."

She nodded against him, his soft t-shirt under her cheek, and it was okay, it was fine. She could do this, lean against him while he kneaded the muscles in her back, while he watched the boys, while he took on everything else.

She could do this for now. It wouldn't hurt anything.

\-----

“Shhh,” she laughs, shoving on him as he makes faces at her. “Get your ass downstairs before you wake them up.” 

“It’s weird though. Wyatt was out cold but James was so chatty. What is going on?”

She wrinkles her nose and follows him down the steps, his hand in hers and tugging. When she gets to the bottom, she nudges into his back to make him keep moving, her free hand tucking into the waistband of his pants.

“Come on, baby,” she murmurs. “Left you hanging.”

“No, you didn’t, not really.” He shrugs at her arched eyebrow and pulls her into his arms. “I mean, it was good for me too, having you come like that against my thigh. Totally does it for me.”

“But technically,” she says, skimming her fingers at his waistband and popping the button of his fly. “Technically, you’re still hard for me.”

“Technically, I’m always hard for you,” he growled.

She grinned and worked the zipper down, biting her bottom lip at the way he looked at her. She snaked her hand inside his pants and rubbed her knuckles over the ridge of his boxer-clad cock.

“Mm, always hard for you,” he sighed out, eyes fluttering closed. “Best feeling in the world, wanting you.”

“What about the having?”

“Good too, that’s good, but wanting. Wanting makes me - alive. Proves I’m - not so broken.”

“You’re not broken,” she whispered, wrapping her fingers around the bulge of him. She felt his cock twitch and pulse in response and she peeled his boxer briefs down his hips, pushed his pants over his thighs.

“Wanting you makes me think I’m doing okay,” he said gruffly. “Let - let me take off my pants, Kate. Least that much.”

“Maybe not,” she murmured, stroking him now, the bare flesh of him. “Maybe you should stay just like this for me.”

“Please,” he groaned, heading falling back. They were just standing in the middle of his bedroom, but the hard line of his arm around her neck and his fist gripping at her shirt as if to pull it off, the thick sheer size of him in her hand, the pressure of his body bumping against her own - it was all so erotic, world-transforming.

“Just like this,” she said quietly, lifting on her toes a little to kiss the plane of his chin. His head dropped forward again and his eyes blazed as he looked at her, like the dark of his iris were suns in those blue skies. His mouth found hers and his tongue pushed inside, slow strokes that defied the logic of his need.

She wanted to do more than jack him off with her hand. She wanted - wanted things she didn’t have words for or pictures to translate. She wanted dark and obsessive and needy; she wanted him at her mercy; she wanted herself at his.

“When you handcuffed me,” she rasped at his lips.

“What?” The word was a harsh sound coming up his throat. “No-”

“Something about it,” she whimpered.

“No-”

“Please-”

“Kate-”

“Your cock is so thick, just me talking about it, how much it rages in my hand.”

“Because you’re touching me.”

“And because you want to. Make me understand. Make me see how...”

“Much I love you. How good you are for me. How desperately we need you.”

“Make me,” she shivered, twisting his cock.

He shouted and came in her hand, his hips pumping erratically, his noise more frustrated than fulfilled.

When he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her hand away from him, his eyes were collapsing stars.

“I’m going to love you,” he growled.

And he pushed her down to the bed.

\-----

She was wild-eyed and pushing up on her elbows, her chest heaving, and fuck him if it didn’t make the blood roar in his head and pulse like fire through his body. He put a knee to the mattress at her hip, crawled up to push her back down.

She laughed and pushed back up, but he yanked an elbow out from under her and she dropped back, her breath catching.

“This isn’t a joke,” he growled.

She blinked up at him.

“Do you understand?” He stayed poised above her, but he propped himself on one elbow, traced a line down her nose, across her lips, touched her throat. “This is serious, Kate.”

“I’m serious,” she whispered.

“I handcuff you to the bed and then what happens?”

“You fuck me,” she breathed.

He growled and shifted his hand under her shirt, climbed her spine. “And then?”

She blinked up. “You - I don’t know. I-” She shivered and reached out, touched the side of his face. Her lips twisted. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this, but I just want-”

He touched her lips with his fingers and hushed her, leaning in heavily at her side. “I know you want. I know what you want. But I don’t think you do.”

“So?” she cried out. “What does it matter? Just do it.” She bucked up against him and he pressed his hand to her hip, holding her down. 

He snaked the hem of her t-shirt up and pulled it off over her head, tossing it aside. He stroked her hair back down, combed it back from her face, from those wide, trusting, wanting eyes. “It matters because you matter, sweetheart.”

“Stop sweethearting me. Stop being so fucking gentle and just - just fuck me, fuck me, make me feel-”

He pressed a rough kiss to her mouth and silenced her, dragging his hand down into her pants. She gasped around his tongue but he was already too far, already losing it, and what he wanted so badly was right here under him.

She moaned and arched into him, and he ripped the yoga pants down her legs, peeling them down to her ankles and leaving them there to bind her. She grunted and her eyes fluttered open, but he shifted off her body and grabbed her wrists.

Kate gasped, knees jerking up and into him, but he slammed his forearm across her thighs and shoved her back down.

“No, you don’t,” he husked. “You asked for this.”

She was shivering. “I want it, I promise I want it, I want you to fuck me-”

“Shut the fuck up, Kate. You’re not in charge any more. You don’t know what you want.”

Her body shuddered hard and he sat up again, her wrists in his hand, tight. He reached for his bedside drawer and took out the sparkly purple cuffs he’d snagged from Colin - ages ago. Seemed like forever. 

He hadn’t liked this pair because they were impossible for her to release on her own, but for teaching her a lesson-

“Please,” she whimpered.

He pushed the silky band over one wrist and yanked her arm up towards the headboard, and when she gasped and her chest rose, he threaded the cuffs through to reach her other wrist.

“Please, please,” she husked. Whispering, chanting, her body moving in a ribbon under him.

“I hate these fucking handcuffs, I hate what they did to you-”

She groaned and her fingers curled up around the purple cuff, her elbow coming in against his neck. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I need you so badly, please don’t stop-”

He cuffed her other wrist and tugged once on the rubbery grip, stroked his hand down the inside of her arm. She shivered and her pupils were blown, her chest heaving - that close to hyperventilating.

He laid his hand on her sternum, the heel of his hand between her breasts. “Calm down, baby.” He stroked his fingers at her clavicles and sat beside her, watching her restless movements. “You have to breathe, honey, or this is all over.”

“I am,” she gasped. “I will. I will.”

He skimmed down her belly and circled her navel. She whined and lifted her hips, one knee sliding against the other, trying to work her yoga pants off. But he caught her behind that restless knee and squeezed hard.

Hard enough to bruise.

She gasped and breathed in, and now her chest expanded and collapsed again, the rhythm reestablished. He pulled sharply and made her body stretch taut on the bed, her arms raised over her head.

“I’m going to fuck you, Kate. But first I’m going to make you ready for me.”

“I’m ready now,” she moaned. “Please. Just please. Please-”

He skimmed around her thigh and came inside, pressed up between her legs. She gasped, arching hard, her spine bowing, and he spread her sex with his fingers.

“You’re so wet, baby. Why are you so fucking wet?”

“Please,” she gasped. “Please, please-”

He leaned in over her, pressing hard, fingers stroking between her legs. “You want this so badly, don’t you, baby? How much you want to be fucked, tied up so you can’t get away from me, so you have to take me.”

Suddenly she jerked inwards, thighs clamping around his hand, her head twisting away. He knew it would happen, knew she’d flinch to him, but he wasn’t having it. She had fucking asked for this, she had asked for things she hadn’t any fucking clue about, and he had tried to warn her.

He wasn’t going to let her do this. Make this into trauma, make this into the thing the Eastmans said it was.

He would take the cuffs off. He had to. She couldn’t-

Kate let out a groan and shuddered hard, her lungs filling. Her thighs fell apart. He rested his hand on her thigh, about to move, but her chin came back down and her eyes met his.

“Make me feel - only you,” she whispered. “I only want you. Not the rest of it. Just you.”

He stared down at her for a heartbeat, and then he slowly shifted until his body laid over hers. She whimpered, her mouth twisting but she lifted her head and took a kiss from him, biting his bottom lip as if she meant to get a reaction.

He caressed her sides with his fingers and kissed her back softly, softly, rubbing his body against hers. She was moaning now, undulating under him, one thigh coming up at his hip, untangling from her pants.

He broke from her kiss and shifted to one side so he could skim down her body and touch her again. She was shaking now, quivering, and when his fingers came between her legs she moaned and opened her eyes.

“Oh, yes,” she husked. “You - feel so good. Oh, Castle.”

“More?”

“I want you.”

“This first,” he murmured. “My fingers inside you, preparing you for me.”

“I can take you, I can-”

“Hush, baby. I’m in control here.”

\-----


	18. Chapter 18

She strained against the rubber circling her wrists, her hips aching upwards. 

Castle was everywhere, pressing her back down, his fingers between her legs. Burning. Slicking through her folds and rubbing at those raw places that made her feel so aware, so inside her own skin. 

“Rick,” she coaxed, urging him to finish her, to do it. 

“You don’t get to say,” he growled, withdrawing his hand.

“No, no, no,” she chanted. “Please.”

“It’s not up to you, Kate.”

She whined and pulled her knee in, but he elbowed her back down, laying practically over her. His wet fingers skimmed the outside of her hip and teased along her stomach.

“Please,” she whispered. Her arms pulled at the cuffs but they only stretched so far, and she could do nothing to urge him closer. “Please, Castle, I need you.”

“I know what you need.” His mouth touched her breast. She groaned and her licked along her ribs under the heavy drag of her breast. “Either you trust me, Kate, or you don’t.”

“I do,” she whimpered. “I trust you. Please.”

“Then hush, baby. I’ve got you.”

She whined, but his hand was already traveling back between her legs, stroking again, that same frustrating, forever burn. He laid over her side, heavy, and his mouth traveled between her breasts, not quite where she wanted, not quite what she wanted.

“That’s better, much better,” he husked. “How beautiful you are, spread out under me. Your body so taut, struggling.”

Kate moaned, fire licking through her blood, under her skin, everything.

He traced a finger around her clit and she gasped. “You’re so strong. See how your muscle flexes?” His mouth touched the vulnerable skin just inside her arm, his teeth nipped at her tricep. “You keep trying, don’t you, baby? You know you can’t get free, but still you struggle.”

God. Why did it make her so fucking aroused when he said that? When his fingers stroked, his mouth on her breast, she understood. But the words coming out of his mouth, haughty and yet tender, caressing even as they burned.

“When you writhe, your whole body goes hard - except right here.” His fingers rubbed through her folds and found her entrance. “Except right here, sweetheart, where you’re so fucking drenched.”  
She groaned, another plea that didn’t seem to make it past her lips. She shifted her hips, desperate for him, and Castle finally pressed his fingers inside her.

Breathing her name.

“Oh, please,” she gasped, head thrashing on the pillow. 

He was so wide, two fingers sinking deep, and her thighs trembled. Her breasts quivered as she squirmed - get closer, get away, she had no idea - only that she couldn’t stop moving.  
Struggling.

His mouth sealed over her breast and suckled a dark mark to the top slope, his teeth nipping the edge. She was panting hard again, losing her breaths, her bound wrists tugging her too open, too bare, too much.

Castle thrust his fingers high and hard, and she yelped, arching into him. He was still talking, words she couldn’t follow, her pulse roaring in her ears as her body fought.

And suddenly he was shifting on top of her, bearing her down, covering her. She cried out, elbows pressing inward and catching the sides of his head. He tossed his head to throw her off, she felt the fold of his ears as he kept her from having him.

But now there were his thighs between hers, widening her, and his abs so hard against her stomach, the vulnerable skin to skin. He mouthed her throat and touched his tongue to her gulping swallow, and then she felt the throb of his cock settling at her sex.

“Oh, God,” she moaned.

“Hush, honey. Be quiet, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”

She whimpered as he moved, her breasts crushed beneath his weight, and then he was teasing her sex again, slipping hard over her clit and making her shout.

“I’m going to fuck you now, Kate.”

She realized she was bracing herself, taut, tense, her arms trembling as she pulled against the cuffs.

And then he was pushing his cock inside her, forcing his way, making her take him.

She couldn’t take him. She couldn’t.

Her body broke apart, her orgasm clenching tight and crushing everything out of her, breath, mind, will.

\-----

She was a tight fist around his cock. She was writhing. She was a gorgeous warrior goddess taking him fiercely into her body and claiming him as her own.

Branded.

Sheered off at the root.

Up in flames.

He grit his teeth and held on through it, gripping her by her raised arms. He knew he was putting bruises in her biceps but he couldn’t do anything else.

She gasped with the last of it, and then he began to move.

Kate moaned, quivering against him, her legs coming up around his hips in a way that either meant she was overstimulated or urging him on. And he had a feeling they were one in the same for her.

He fucked her incessantly, pushing his terrible cock deep enough to ache. But she wasn’t some passive thing under him; she wasn’t lying there and moaning and thinking of England. She was all animal ferocity, writhing and digging her heels into his ass, pushing upward into his thrusts, finding a counter rhythm. She swiveled her hips at the end of his plunge, inventing some new thing that made him see white stars, and it was sensual as fuck.

“Harder,” she moaned.

He was already fucking her so hard she was going to be marked, but he reached down and gripped her thigh, pulled her leg up until her knee was at his ear.

And then he thrust.

“Oh, God.”

She came on a wave, rising up against him and shuddering, her sex clutching at him. He grunted and couldn’t stop himself - he was rutting into her when his climax burst through him. 

Castle emptied all of himself inside her body, collapsing on top of her and rolling to his side, their legs tangled.

\-----

“Caaaastle,” she called. He was awake, she thought, but his eyes were closed and his breathing was heavy and rough. She nudged what she could with her knee, getting him at the back of his thigh, and she called his name again.

He groaned and his eyes flickered open.

For a heartbeat, they were the only things that existed, him and her, but still together, as if still joined, one breathing animal. 

Her arms ached.

“Oh, fuck, you’re still cuffed,” he growled, reaching for her. 

She flinched, and he leaned in over her, as if his body pressing hers down would help. 

Weirdly, it kind of did.

“Sorry, baby. That’s my fault. I meant to release you right before the - uh - main event.”

“Main event,” she repeated, nudging her nose into his raised arm where he was struggling to release her. “Are you saying your orgasm is the main event? Awfully self-centered of you, Rick Castle.”

He grunted and his hip fell against her, one of his elbows catching the mattress near her ear. She glanced up and he was looking down at her, eyes narrowed.

Kate laughed, bit her lip. “That’s okay, sweetheart. You got me three times. I’m more than satisfied.”

He growled and ducked in to kiss her - hard - teeth and suction. Pulling her lower lip into his teeth and stroking with his tongue and then suddenly one of her hands was free.

She gasped and clutched him, drawing her arm around his torso and holding him down to her as she’d longed to do throughout. He grunted and softened, mouth trailing along her jaw and back to her ear.

And then her other hand was free. 

“I see what you mean,” she murmured, bringing her arm around his neck. “You’re very talented.”

He chuckled and lifted his head, his eyes that sail blue, of skies and oceans and beautiful days at the lake out here. “Not that talented. I didn’t manage to release you in time.”

“In time for what?” she huffed. “Was I complaining?”

His eyes darkened. She saw that same wonderfully fierce lust in his eyes that she felt in her belly, how it swallowed everything else. “You were most enthusiastic,” he growled.

She tightened her arm around his neck and lifted her head, found his mouth for another kiss. Let her tongue tease his lips and inside again.

He rumbled like a bear, noises into her mouth and vibrating between them. His body so heavy on top of hers, how he pressed her down, how the mattress at her back firmly pushed her back into him.

She gasped when he released her mouth, gulping down air, and his forearms planted beside her head, putting him right above her. When she focused on his face, he was dancing his fingers across her cheeks and tracing her chin.

“You were, right?”

“Right about what?” she murmured, staring back at him.

“You were - enthusiastic about-”

She grunted and shifted her hips up into him. “You were there,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “You tell me, Castle.”

“I - just want you so much that sometimes I take. I don’t - I can’t seem to stop myself. I don’t really want to punish you, I want to love you but I-”

“Shut up,” she mumbled, tightening her arm around his neck and trying to drag him down to her. But he wouldn’t budge. 

He looked so serious.

They were naked and skins were sweat-pressed and his cock was still warm at her thigh and he wondered?

“Maybe I need to be punished,” she said, going for coy but finding the truth falling out of her mouth instead. Too serious herself.

She meant it.

She wasn’t sure she liked meaning it. That wasn’t who she was. Her sons didn’t need a mother who thought she ought to be...

punished.

“Maybe you need to be loved,” he murmured. His thumbs drew a line back from her jaw and buried in her hair. “And part of love is hard.”

“Tough love,” she answered, her shoulders drawing up.

“Stop. Don’t - it’s not a question, it’s not something that needs to be addressed. I’m just letting you know that what you want, what you need from me, Kate - there’s no shame in it. I can... cuff you. If you want it. I - clearly I enjoyed myself too.”

“I really liked it,” she whispered. “But isn’t it - weird or - or kinky?”

“It’s not bad. Don’t say it like it’s bad.”

“But you didn’t want to-”

“Not because of that,” he growled. “But because of you. You were fucking tied up, Kate. You were imprisoned. I don’t want to do anything that might-”

She touched his lips with her fingers to quiet him, shook her head. “It’s not that. It doesn’t feel anything like that.”

His eyes softened; he took her hand from his lips and curled his fingers around hers. “You - panicked a little. I saw it on your face. And felt it. Here.” He pulled their clasped hands to his chest, and she could feel the thump of his heart against the back of her hand.

“It was good panic?”

He cocked his head.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. It felt good to be - scared.”

“Scared?” he yelped.

She squirmed under him. “Not for my life,” she said. That didn’t seem to help. He looked horrified. “No, I mean, I don’t know what I mean. I liked how it made me feel. I liked - I loved feeling pushed to the edge and you right there with me.”

Some of the horror slid from his eyes. His fingers let go of her hand and instead skimmed down her thigh, tickled the back of her knee. “Definitely right there with you. But scared? Of me?”

“No,” she sighed, shifting her knee up where he seemed to want it, up along his hip. “No, never afraid of you. Just that little dart of panic that - clears my head. It was always good. There. It helped. And it - it makes things burn brighter. Makes me feel... makes me feel.”

“Usually when people do this,” he said quietly, and his hand gripped the back of her thigh. “They have a safe word. A word that - when it’s said - stops play.”

“Were you playing?”

His mouth opened but nothing came out.

She traced her finger along his chest, pressed her palm flat to his shoulder. He pulled her with him and came to his side, and then his back, and she was draped over him.

“Was that play?” she said. “It felt real to me.”

“I guess - no. Not play.”

“Then why would I need a word?”

He grumbled under her and she turned her cheek to put her ear to his chest. She could hear his heart there, and it was soothing. It made her relax again.

Castle dragged his hand up her back. “Baby, I think you’re willfully misunderstanding me.”

“No.”

“Yes. The word is for the fear. For when the fear doesn’t make you feel, when it doesn’t burn brighter or clear your head but instead makes everything worse.”

“No,” she sighed. “I don’t want a word.”

She couldn’t imagine it ever happening. Just that simple. She couldn’t see how sex with him would ever be less than what it was - all-consuming.

“Kate,” he murmured.

“I don’t do well with words anyway,” she muttered, tracing her fingers along his shoulder. “Words just - don’t come when I need them.”

“That’s for fucking sure,” he sighed. “But this would be - like an emergency. If I’m doing something that-”

“I said no.”

He growled, shifted his hand into her hair as if to pull her head up. 

She slapped his shoulder. “No means no, Rick Castle.”

He laughed. He actually laughed, and she felt it under her, all that relief and mirth and relaxation. 

“Okay, baby. I understand. I get it. No safe word.”

Wait. Did he want a safe word to stop her?

\-----

“Shower?” he suggested. “Before the boys wake.”

She sighed and squirmed on top of him, a strange little pout of her lips. “I guess. If we have to. But I kinda like walking around smelling like you.”

Well, fuck.

“Fuck the shower,” he growled. “I really want you walking around smelling like me.”

She laughed and lifted her head, her chin on his chest. “No, I think - I mean, you’re probably right. We should both shower. I have - um - you know. My thighs are sticky.”

He grinned and skimmed his hand down her back to her ass, found the place between her legs. He felt that darkness slide through him at just the touch of their arousal together. “You really are.”

“I told you,” she muttered, squirming again.

“Are you aroused right now?”

“You have your hand between my legs, Castle. Of course I am.”

He grinned. “Not everyone would say that, you know.”

“I don’t really fucking care about everyone,” she growled. “You’re teasing me.”

“I’m not teasing,” he answered, slicking his fingers back along her ass. “You’d know it if I were.”

“Feels like it to me,” she whined.

“You want it again?” he whispered, touching his lips to her temple. “I could touch you just like this, rub my fingers through your sex. You’re already soaked with my come.”

“Fuck,” she whimpered. Her face pressed against his chest and he felt her teeth.

“I think that’s a yes.”

“What about the shower?” she said, her voice like air, whimpering, heady.

“Fuck the shower, I want you to smell like me. And I want to smell like you.”

He teased now, and she moaned, her mouth open against his chest, a lick of her tongue. He sucked in a breath, caught by the way she moved on top of him, by the wonderful slick heat between her legs.

“You feel good, baby. Do you feel good?”

“So - so good,” she moaned. She worked her thighs against his hand, and he kept finding interesting little ways to make her jerk and gasp. She had this sensitive place just to the side of her clit, a strip of skin just inside her folds, and she mewled and gripped his arms, her breasts crushing into his chest.

When her orgasm swept over her, she cried out, her teeth grazing his nipple, and the wash of her pleasure through her also went through him, like he had come with her, like her release was a release of all his tension as well.

\-----

He left her going to the bathroom while he pulled on pants and a shirt and headed for the kitchen. He hunted through the pantry until he had an idea for dinner, and then he started preparing - meat, veggies, the crockpot Colin had bought. (Why? What the fuck had Colin been cooking with this thing, except meth or-)

Fuck. He needed to scald this thing with hot water first.

With the sink running full blast, he didn’t hear her approach. But he felt her presence and saw the slink of her body at the last second, and then she was wrapping herself around him at his back, burying her face between his shoulder blades.

His heart rate was kicking hard.

She didn’t seem to notice, thank God; she just tightened her arms around him and sighed.

“Dinner,” he explained, rubbing his fingers along the inside of the crockpot’s... crock. Whatever the bowl was called. Damn, he was going to have to learn how to cook, wasn’t he?

“Already?” she laughed.

“It’s the one other thing I know how to make that I haven’t made already, and I’m supposed to let it cook in this for a while. So. Yeah. At least it will smell good in here.”

“I could make something,” she offered softly. “I don’t know what. Breakfast foods.”

“Naw. Why make yourself? Or make us suffer through eating it?”

She laughed and shoved on his shoulder, and though he barely moved, he let himself rock forward a little, huffing at her. She snorted and came around to lean back against the counter, one of her hands curling around his forearm and stroking.

“You’re really strong,” she murmured.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up, goose bumps raced down his arms as she - fondled him. He stayed as still as he dared and waited while she skimmed her fingernails up to the crook of his elbow and then under the sleeve of his shirt.

“Your muscles are - huge, really.” She gave a little stuttering sigh and put her cheek against his shoulder, her fingers still caressing at his armpit, her thumb along his bicep.

“Just - training,” he murmured, trying not to break the spell. “I won’t hurt you-”

“I know you won’t.” She didn’t move, and he couldn’t see her face like this, turned away from him and looking back. “You’re on my side. And - it feels good to have someone so strong on my side.”

“Other than yourself?” he nudged.

“I don’t feel very strong.”

“Well, you are.” He turned off the water and left the crockpot in the sink. He didn’t move from the spot; he just lifted a hand and touched the back of her head. Sank his lips to her crown and kissed her. “You’re strong. But it’s our strength together that’s impressive. That makes us invincible. Strong together, Kate.”

She nodded, but she didn’t speak, and he wasn’t sure he still had her.

\-----

He was right. Food in the crockpot made the whole fortress smell so good. Meat and cooking wine and golden mushroom soup (she had noted the ingredients as he’d dumped them inside), and the rich scents inundated every room.

Kate was on the couch, a stack of nonfiction books from his shelves here in the living room, skimming portions of A Brief History of Time, as if she could catch up on what she’d lost. Castle was in and out, doing chores or fixing things, she had no idea. He had on a toolbelt and kept swiping sweat off various portions of his body, and then he’d go outside or head for Colin’s stairs.

He kept ducking the top of her head as he went by. Sweat on her ear as he tugged it. A kiss that tasted like sawdust and salt.

She kicked at him as he moved this time, and he laughed and caught her foot, tugged a little. She was only wearing bright blue running shorts and another one of his slouchy black t-shirts. He seemed to like it anyway, fingers skimming up her calf before dropping her.

“Smells good in here,” she told him, giving him that much. “You’re not only a handyman, but a chef.”

He preened a little, chest puffing out in the same way the boys did. So proud of themselves. 

“What’re you doing out there, anyway?”

“Making an enclosure for Wolf. I figured he’d need a running pen at the least. And a - not a cage, baby, I swear - just a kind of dog house? A lean-to inside the running track.”

“Oh.” She sat up a little, putting her thumb in the book to mark her place. “Not a cage?”

“Not at all. Just - if he can’t stay in the house at first. I don’t know if he can do it, you know? We won’t give up, but I think we should have something just for him. A place he can have that’s all his own, doesn’t smell like us. Or well, won’t after I’m done and it rains a little.”

“Yeah.” She nodded, the book against her chest, feet on the floor. “You’re right. Something just for him. When he needs - out.”

“Not just out,” Castle said carefully. “He’s wild. And gray wolf, they don’t always live in packs. Usually it would be family units, the two adult parents and the most recent pups, and then - there’s a reason they call them lone wolves.”

“Oh.” She had listened to Dr Mason when he’d talked about pack behavior and teaching the little cub how to feel like he was one of them. But she’d not thought about how Wolf might need to be separate from them at times.

“It’s okay, you know,” he said. He shrugged. “That’s why I’m building something for him. Don’t you think he’ll feel better knowing it’s okay to run? Okay to escape us if he has to just go.”

“Yeah,” she rasped. Nodding. Her throat closed up. If he had to escape, he could just go.

“And - at the risk of - shit - it’s the same for you, Kate. You need to escape, I really fucking hope you feel you can. I mean, tell me you gotta get out of here, and you’re free and clear.”

She squirmed, wishing he hadn’t said that, hadn’t given her carte blanche to abandon him. And the boys. She was afraid of letting herself off the hook. “I’m - I can do this.”

“Baby, that’s not what I meant. Everyone needs a break every now and then, but you-” He shook his head and reached out, touched her eyebrow. Right along the scar. “Three years, honey. I think you have three years’ worth of escapes built up.”

“What about you?” she said, opening the book on her thighs. Smoothing the pages. A Brief History of Time. “Don’t you have whole decades built up?”

He gave her a crooked smile, one corner tugged down. “It might sound kinda lame, but you don’t know just how much this is my escape. You guys. You’re my family, Kate. I never had - this before. Never understood until now. This is my escape.”

She tilted her head, stared up at him. “Changing diapers and making dinner in the crock pot is escape?”

“For me. Yeah. It is.” He shrugged again and gestured for the back door, left her on the couch without another word.

She found she believed him. He liked this, playing house. Only he wasn’t playing, was he? This was real for him, those boys - he had visions for their future and what might be done for them, what their life together looked like. Making dinner in the crock pot was only one thing.

She would have to make him cabbage rolls some day. She had learned from her grandmother when she’d been eight, right before the woman had died, and her mother had helped her to make them every Easter, keeping the memory alive. She could do those; she could teach the boys if they were interested, pass down the knowledge just as her mother had done for her.

Honestly, Castle might want to be her student. She could - there were things she could do to keep her family alive, to instill some tradition into this... whatever this was they had. This thrown together thing.

No. Be honest. It was much more than thrown together.

It was Castle’s escape, his real life - she had seen that in him. How good he was at all of this, how natural. He might not have understood before, but he definitely did now. Like this had all been waiting inside him, ready, aching.

Kate leaned back against the couch, closing her eyes. She took a deep breath, but it was redolent with dinner, reminders of all the things she didn’t know if she could do again.

He was such a good father. Her - her father would have loved him.

Kate swiped tears from her cheeks and opened her eyes, refusing to give way to it. She steadfastly studied the book on her lap until the words began to come into focus, and then she read resolutely of light particles, light waves, and the unknowable depths of black holes.

\-----

“Mommy?”

“Whoa, shit,” she gasped, jumping up from the couch. James was in the doorway looking rumpled and sleepy. “Baby, how did you get down here?”

“Hi, Mommy.”

She chuckled, leaning over to pick him up, and he cuddled right down into her, yawning. “Hi, James. Did you have a good nap?”

“Nap.”

“That’s right, baby. A nap. You slept hard.” She shifted her arm under his bottom and carried him back down the hall towards the bedroom. “Let’s change your diaper. Is Wyatt still sleeping?”

“Seeping.”

“Wow, yeah, listen to you talk.” She laid him down on the bed and wrinkled her nose at him, making James grin in response. He lifted his hands to her and she kissed them both, fast kisses as she gobbled at his fingers, and he gave a giggling sigh.

She changed his diaper, went ahead and tugged his sleep-worn shirt off as well. 

“Let’s go upstairs and check on Wy, get you some clean clothes. Daddy and Aunt Carrie bought you all these clothes so we might as well wear them, huh?”

“Air.”

“Carrie, that’s right. You liked her, didn’t you? I think so. Come on, quiet now.”

She mounted the steps and realized they’d forgotten to set the baby gate when they’d put the boys to bed. No wonder James had managed to come downstairs. He was clinging to her now, his body curled against her chest, and she peeked in at Wyatt, but he was still asleep.

He had bunny and James’s rag doll. “Well, no wonder,” she whispered to James, kissing his cheek. “But now you can have me.”

He squirmed in her arms and she moved to the organizational bins they were still using as a dresser. She pulled out little jean shorts and a clean t-shirt, and then she carried James back downstairs, this time remembering to close the gate.

He was quiet while she dressed him, but when Kate put him on his feet and moved away, he called her name and cried for her, chin quivering.

“Oh, still sleepy, huh? I bet you’ve never gotten away with this before.” And the thought struck her how terrible that was, how bad it might have been, to be a sleepy baby in the care of someone cold and terrorized by Black, and she leaned down and scooped him up, held him against her chest. “I think I’m going to spoil you,” she choked out, kissing his cheeks and wrapping her arms around him. “I’m sorry. You’re going to be a little terror-”

James grunted against her chest and squirmed, as if protesting.

“Right. Not you. Wyatt will be our little terror. You’re just tired, and you want mommy, and I’m here now. So. Come on, baby. Let’s cuddle on the back porch and watch Daddy build this thing for Wolf.”

“Woof.”

“Mm, that’s right-”

“My Mommy.”

“For right now,” she whispered, kissing his temple. “Right now it’s you and me. My brave and strong boy. My little man.”

\-----

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this period of their lives (written, that is). From here on, there are pieces of things, written by me or written by cartographical, in which we put a bit more flesh on their circumstances. I'll add those to this series, but this is basically the whole of this version of their story.
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading.


End file.
